Crash Structural Improvements in Automotive Vehicles Using Metallic Foams

More and more stringent requirements in passive safety lead automotive manufactures to explore new ways to improve present passengers cars performances. Material engineering could contribute to the development and application of improved materials with higher performance with respect to the conventional metals applied in car design. Aluminium foams are currently monitored as application from automotive manufactures thanks to their potential in terms of contribution for energy absorption and stiffness improvement. Several application studies have been proposed from major automotive research branches and the potential in terms of performance improvement has been exploited. Up to now, nevertheless, many studies have been performed only from the performance point of view, most of the time on simplified demonstrators, without taking into account a global vision in terms of process compatibility with common automotive manufacturing lines. In the present paper a detailed investigation of metallic foam application as structural vehicle reinforcement has been accomplished. Starting from finite element analysis (FEA) a metallic foam reinforced version of a Multipla car vehicle has been redesigned and manufactured in standard manufacturing line. The experience obtained both from the manufacturing and from the experimental crash test has allowed a deeper knowledge of metallic foam behaviour. The present works represents a step forward with respect to the current investigations on real applications in cellular materials.