Twelve-cornered strengthening member

Abstract

A crush can to an automotive vehicle has a twelve-cornered cross section comprising sides and corners creating internal angles and external angles. A geometry of the cross section varies between a front section and a rear section of the crush can. The geometry of the cross section is optimized using a plurality of control parameters including a lateral width, a vertical width, a taper ratio, a front scaling factor, and a rear scaling factor.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A crush can for an automotive vehicle, the crush can having a twelve-cornered cross section comprising sides and corners creating internal angles and external angles,
 wherein a geometry of the cross section varies between a front section and a rear section of the crush can and is optimized using a plurality of control parameters including a lateral width, a vertical width, a taper ratio, a front scaling factor, and a rear scaling factor.   
     
     
         2 . The crush can of  claim 1 , wherein the internal angles of the front section of the crush can are not the same as the internal angles of the rear section of the crush can, and the external angles of the front section of the crush can are not the same as the external angles of the rear section of the crush can. 
     
     
         3 . The crush can of  claim 1 , wherein the lateral width of the front section of the crush can is not the same as the lateral width of the rear section of the crush can and the vertical width of the front section of the crush can is not the same as the vertical width of the rear section of the crush can. 
     
     
         4 . The crush can of  claim 3 , wherein the taper ratio raises or lowers a height ratio between the front section and a rear section of the crush can. 
     
     
         5 . The crush can of  claim 4 , wherein the front scaling factor scales coordinates of inner corner points of the front section of the crush can and the rear scaling factor scales coordinates of inner corner points of the rear section of the crush can. 
     
     
         6 . The crush can of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of control parameters are generated using a parametric model of the crush can. 
     
     
         7 . The crush can of  claim 6 , wherein the geometry of the cross section is optimized using an optimization algorithm for an optimal crush can performance with respect to energy absorption and crush distance for both high and low speed frontal impact events. 
     
     
         8 . A method for optimizing a twelve-cornered strengthening member, the method comprising:
 modeling a vehicle assembly including a strengthening member having a twelve-cornered cross section;   parameterizing a geometry of the strengthening member with a plurality of control parameters;   defining a design of experiment using the plurality of control parameters;   modeling a vehicle using the vehicle assembly;   simulating a frontal impact event with the vehicle;   generating a response surface based on the frontal impact event; and   determining a set of optimized control parameters for the strengthening member based on the response surface.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein modeling the vehicle assembly comprises modeling a bumper and a crush can having a twelve-cornered cross section. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein parameterizing the geometry with a plurality of control parameters comprises generating a lateral width, a vertical width, a taper ratio, a front scaling factor, and a rear scaling factor. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein generating the lateral width and the vertical width comprises generating dimensions for a front section of the strengthening member. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein generating the taper ratio comprises generating a height ratio between the front section and a rear section of the strengthening member. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein generating the front scaling factor comprises generating a factor which scales coordinates of inner corner points of the front section of the strengthening member and generating the rear scaling factor comprises generating a factor which scales coordinates of inner corner points of the rear section of the strengthening member. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein defining a design of experiment comprises defining an upper bound value and a lower bound value for each of the plurality of control parameters. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein modeling a vehicle using the vehicle assembly comprises modeling a vehicle subsystem or a full vehicle based on the design of experiment. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein simulating a frontal impact event with the vehicle comprises measuring a performance output of the strengthening member during a high speed frontal impact event and/or a low speed frontal impact event. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein measuring a performance output of the strengthening member comprises measuring energy absorption, an average crush force, and a mass of the strengthening member. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein determining the set of optimized control parameters comprises defining an optimization problem including design objectives, design constraints, and design variables for the strengthening member. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18 , wherein determining the set of optimized control parameters comprises searching for a solution to the optimization problem based on the response surface. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising validating the set of optimized control parameters by simulating a frontal impact event with the set of optimized control parameters.