Vehicle front rail impact trigger: A new conceptual design, manufacturing and impact performance through FEA simulation

This thesis study uses a new forming process "hot metal gas forming" to simulate the manufacturing process to develop a trigger for the front rail, which is followed by an Impact study of the formed tube.; (1) The first part deals with the literature involving elevated temperature forming a detailed study of various forming equations. (2) Forming analysis of a tube under a constraint from a die cavity is performed under controlled conditions using Abaqus Explicit code, the forming process uses the principles of a new forming process called "Hot metal Gas Forming". Constant pressure is applied to the heated tube, which expands till it touches the rigid die surface. (3) Impact simulation of the formed tube structure was performed using LS-Dyna3D against a rigid structure. The results obtained showed a 40% drop in peak loads is the bumped trigger was used in the front rail as compared to a conventional rail, the energy absorbing characteristics did not show a significant change. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...