Low speed collisions are common in areas with traffic congestion and parking occasions. These collisions burden economically the car owners and could have been avoided with suitable design of car bumpers. Bumper beams are one of the most important structures in passenger cars, relative to the safety and the levels of protection of the vehicle chassis. Careful and appropriate design should be considered in order to achieve best impact behavior.

There is no beaten track regarding the bumper beam design, neither its geometry nor the materials used. Consequently, there is a wide range of design and manufacturing philosophies used in modern cars and the research and development in this field is enormous and continuous.

The scope of this project was to design and simulate a light weight automotive bumper according to the full frontal low-speed impact test established by the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) & the RCAR (Research Council for Automobile Repairs). The design includes a prototypal and innovative bumper geometry and the simulation analysis was accomplished for materials that are quite common or will be the state of the art in the near future, like specific aluminum alloys, strengthened thermoplastics and composite materials. Comparisons in terms of weight and impact performance were made. The bumper’s geometry was invariable and the effect of interior additions, like horizontal / vertical composite absorbers or polystyrene foam, on the bumper’s deformation was studied, in order to assess the crashworthiness of each configuration.

The contribution of the advanced Applied Mechanics Laboratory to FEAC, by providing knowledge and technology transfer has been a key factor for the accomplishment of this project, which included:

•  Parametric CAD modeling, drafting & parameters documentation
•  APDL input files & macros
•  Setup of the parametric explicit FE analysis
•  Optimization of the structure to better fulfill the standards
•  Procedure & results documentation

Tools Used

• Catia V5
• MSC Nastran/Patran
• Ansys Classic
• APDL Input Files & Macros
• ETA VPG
• LS-DYNA
• LS-Prepost

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is planning to use shorter magnets to make room in its tunnel for new instruments that will help narrow the particle beam, protecting the LHC ring from beam losses. But if the magnets must be shorter, they must also be stronger to compensate. To obtain the necessary longitudinal space for the collimators, a solution based on an 11 T dipole as replacement of the 8.33 T LHC main dipoles is being considered.

In order to increase the magnetic field, the material of the conductor has to change. The superconductor used currently in the accelerator is niobium-titanium but It cannot withstand magnetic field intensity as high as the more expensive (and harder to use) niobium-tin . Niobium-tin is an extremely brittle and difficult-to-manage superconductor therefore the research on methods to withstand the large forces and large temperature changes it will be subjected to in accelerator magnets as they help bend and focus particle beams is ongoing.

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva, Switzerland) and FNAL (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Chicago, USA) have started a joint program to demonstrate the feasibility of Nb3Sn technology for this purpose.

Present FEAC stuff, while working for CERN at the time, were responsible for these services:

•  Translation of APDL input files to CATIA & ANSYS Workbench files
•  Parametric CAD modeling, drafting & parameters documentation
•  APDL input files & macros
•  Setup of parametric, coupled multiphysics FE analysis
•  Design space exploration
•  Shape optimization of components & parameter values to achieve the required results
•  Comparison between test and FEM results
•  Procedure & results documentation
•  Knowledge transfer

The project is ongoing at CERN & Fermilab. Follow the links to learn more :

• Fermilab Today
• Cern Bulletin 11-Tesla Project

Tools Used

• Catia V5
• CADNexus CAPRI CAE
• Ansys DesignModeler
• Ansys Classic
• APDL Input Files & Macros
• Ansys EMAG
• Ansys Maxwell
• Ansys Structural
• Ansys DesignXPlorer