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The modeling of plastic fuel tank systems for crash safety applications has been very challenging. The major challenges include the prediction of fuel sloshing in high speed impact conditions, the modeling of multilayer thermoplastic fuel tanks with post-forming (non-uniform) material properties, and the modeling of tank straps with pre-tensions. Extensive studies can be found in the literature to improve the prediction of fuel sloshing. However, little research had been conducted to model the post-forming fuel tank and to address the tension between the fuel tank and the tank straps for crash safety simulations. Hoping to help improve the modeling of fuel systems, the authors made the first attempt to tackle these major challenges all at once in this study by dividing the modeling of the fuel tank into eight stages. An ALE (Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian) method was adopted to simulate the interaction between the fuel and the tank.

This study summarizes the latest development of the methodologies for testing and CAE modeling of the engine mount. A systematic approach is used in this study with detailed component, subsystem and full system level investigations. The component level study reveals the entangling phenomenon of the inertial and rate effects in the engine mount dynamic characteristics. In the subsystem, the interaction between the engine mount and its surrounding structure is explored. The full system study is primarily used to validate the CAE methodology for engine mounts developed in the component and subsystem level studies. Four full vehicle barrier crash tests, with different crash modes and speeds, are employed in this validation phase to evaluate the performance of the engine mount CAE methodology.

A fuel tank is one of the most critical components in a vehicle crash because it may link to passenger safety. The effect of fuel pressure on the tank boundary in a dynamic impact condition is constantly being studied both numerically and experimentally. In hard braking conditions with a partially filled tank, the fuel slams on to the front wall of the tank. During high-speed impact on the other hand, there is significant bulging of the fuel tank if it is nearly full, while vortices and cavities may form with partial filling. In these cases, the internal fuel and vapor pressure distribution can change; thus, affecting the distribution of stress on the tank. The objective of this paper is to study these phenomena using the currently available ALE (Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian) methodology and thus improve fuel tank design by a direct application of CAE.