B Pillar Impact
- Jason He
The B Pillar impact seems to be the most dangerous for MS14, since there are no steel supports running across the chassis (from left side to right side). Proper analysis of a B Pillar impact is required to ensure that the catamaran and composite material is designed well enough to withstand a side impact (i.e. a T-bone crash)
Setup:
- Automatic connections with all beam and surface elements
- Named selection on a B-pillar node in contact with the impact object
- Nodal Displacement and Nodal Rotation to lock the named selection in space
- Fixed support on the back face of the impact object
- Displacement, locking the chassis from moving along the X axis
- Acceleration of 49m/s^2 away from the collision object
Regulation Standard Result (1 inch square chromoly tubing with 0.065" thickness):
Observations
- Here we can see that the most stress (516.8MPa) is in the top corner of the B pillar panel that is in contact with the catamaran
- Having 1 inch square chromoly tubing with 0.065" thickness performs much better than 1.25" circular chromoly tubing with 0.049" thickness
- Seems to pass regulations
Upper B-pillar Impact Results (1 inch square chromoly tubing with 0.065" thickness):
Observations:
- The B-pillar will most likely fail and break
- Extremely dangerous, vehicles with higher bumpers (i.e. pickup trucks) will have a higher impact like this
Upper B-pillar Impact Results (1 inch x 2 inch rectangular chromoly tubing with 0.065" thickness):
Observations:
- Almost twice as less stress as the square tubing
- May need a larger thickness
Upper B-pillar Impact Results (1 inch x 2 inch rectangular chromoly tubing with 0.095" thickness):
Observations:
- A bit better than the 0.065 thick rectangular tubing
- The fixed node may not be placed in the exact same spot, may be some marginal error
Regulation Standard Results (1 inch x 2 inch rectangular chromoly tubing with 0.095" thickness):
Observations:
- Significantly lower max stress on the composite B pillar panel and catamaran