FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF HONEYCOMB IMPACT ATTENUATOR

To participate in Student Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) competitions, it is necessary to build an impact attenuator that would give an average deceleration not to exceed 20g when it runs into a rigid wall. Students can use numerical simulations or experimental test data to show that their car satisfies this safety requirement. A student group to study formula cars at the Korea University of Technology and Education has designed a vehicle to take part in a SAE competition, and a honeycomb structure was adopted as the impact attenuator. In this paper, finite element calculations were carried out to investigate the dynamic behavior of the honeycomb attenuator. Deceleration and deformation behaviors were studied. Effect of the yield strength was checked by comparing the numerical results. ABAQUS/Explicit finite element code was used.