Crashworthiness and lightweight design of an innovative microcar

The increase in road accidents involving microcar is raising public awareness, pushing the manufacturers to increase their safety performance even without current regulations. Nevertheless, lightweight and small dimensions seem to hinder the pursuit of crashworthiness. Passenger decelerations can be reduced through two design solutions: thin-walled internal devices able to absorb kinetic energy and a frame that fulfils the role of survival cell. The present research work concerns the choice of design solutions for improving road safety of a microcar, through numerical and experimental analysis. In the first step, the original frame was optimised in terms of stiffness. Subsequently, thin-walled cylindrical tubes, with different thickness/diameter ratios and materials (aluminium and carbon fibre reinforced plastic composite) were modelled and tested in order to capture the real crushing. Finally, an optimised frontal impact attenuator was modelled with both materials, in order to choose the best solution in terms of specific energy absorption capacity.