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The front rail plays a very important role in vehicle crash. Trigger holes are commonly used to control frame crush mode due to their simple manufacturing process and flexibility for late changes in the product development phase. Therefore, a study, including CAE and testing, was conducted on a production front rail to understand the effects of trigger hole shape, size and orientation. The trigger hole location in the front rail also affects crash performance. Therefore, the effect of trigger hole location on front rail crash behavior was studied, and understanding these effects is the main objective of this study. A tapered front rail produced from 1.7 mm thick DP600 steel was used for the trigger hole location investigation. Front rails with different trigger spacing and sizes were tested using VIA sled test facility and the crash progress was simulated using a commercial code RADIOSS. The strain rate, welding and forming effects were incorporated in the front rail modeling.

The dent resistance of an automotive body panel has been used as one of key design parameters for automotive body panels. Quasi-static dent testing procedures have been well documented in North America using A/SP Standard Dent Resistance Test Procedures and numerous publications in static denting are also available. However, test procedures under dynamic denting are not very well documented and limited data exist on dynamic denting performance of automotive body panels. In this paper, dynamic dent tests are carried out using different impact velocities and different test procedures. The advantages and disadvantages of test procedures are discussed. Different ways to characterize the dynamic dent test results are investigated and discussed. Due to higher impact velocity during the dynamic dent testing, the acceleration effect must be considered in the data analysis. Experiments were carried out on a hydraulic controlled dynamic dent tester.

The formability window of a material depends upon the forming limit and its strain distribution ability. For two materials with the same forming limit, the formability performance is governed by their strain distribution ability. In this study, strain hardening behavior of different strength steels was investigated using a uniaxial tension test and the forming limit was studied using both Marciniak cup and dome tests. The n-value of steels varies with strain. Different strain hardening behaviors are found between mild steels and high strength steels. Strain distribution ability of steels increases with the increase in the overall n-value. The peak n-value at a low strain level enhances the strain distribution ability of the steel. It has been shown from both theoretical and experimental studies that a constant thickness strain line exists on the left side of the forming limit curve.

Body panel performance properties such as denting force, oil canning/critical buckling load, initial and secondary stiffnesses under dynamic loading (drop weight test) were measured for different strength steels and two aluminum alloys using both flat and curved sheets. It was found that all these properties varied with the drop velocity. For the steels, the denting force steadily increased with the increase in drop velocity. For the aluminum alloys, the denting force increased with the drop velocity at lower velocities and decreased or remained unchanged at higher velocities. The oil canning/critical buckling load increased with the increase in drop velocity and initial and secondary stiffnesses decreased with the increase in drop velocity for both steel and aluminum. The dent resistance performance for some aluminum alloys with thicker gauge is comparable to steels dent tested at lower velocities.

In previous investigations, it has been shown that the dent resistance of an auto body panel depends upon the yield strength of the material. However, it is known that the yield strength of steel increases with prestrain due to strain hardening. Panel design and material selection based on the material properties obtained from unstrained sheet steels may lead to inaccurate prediction of the dent resistance of the formed panel. In this study, the effect of prestrain on the static dent resistance of auto body panels was investigated. Using existing empirical relationships between dent resistance and panel properties, it was found that the static dent resistance of an auto panel depends not only on the part geometry and material properties but also on the strain level in the panel. The improvement in dent resistance resulting from a material change from an AKDQ steel to a bake hardenable steel or a high strength steel was determined at different strain levels.