Lightweight Design of B-pillar with TRB Concept Considering Crashworthiness

Abstract

Lightweight and crashworthiness are two crucial aspects of automobile design. The purpose of this study is to minimize the weight of the B-pillar without compromising the safety performance for the car occupants in side collisions and roof crush. For the purpose a finite element model was developed for modeling of a passenger car in side collision and roof crush. The optimization of the B-pillar was carried out by using tailor rolled blanks (TRB) concept under the constraint of vehicle side impact and roof crush. An integrated approach is applied using uniform design, finite element method, Kriging approximation and genetic algorithm. The B-pillar intrusion, intrusion velocity and the resistant force of roof crush were defined as constraint for determination of the thickness of the B-pillar. Finally, two types of structure TRB I and TRB II are proposed for lightweight design. The results indicated that the weight of the B-pillar can be reduced by 36.43% and 31.57% respectively, while fulfilling the safety requirements.