Use of Aluminum Foam to Increase Crash Box Efficiency

Wayne Maddever; Sebastien Guinehut

doi:10.4271/2005-01-0704

2005-04-11

Use of Aluminum Foam to Increase Crash Box Efficiency 2005-01-0704

Aluminum foams have been of interest to automotive designers for some time due to their extreme light weight (0.3 to 0.5 g/cm₃) and their potential to absorb energy during impact.

The current paper describes the use of stabilized aluminum foams produced by the melt method from Metal Matrix Composites (MMC) in automotive front-end crash box applications. Performance of an existing design crash box using hollow aluminum extrusions will be compared to the same extrusions filled with MMC foams of varying densities. Methods of manufacture and control of the physical and the related mechanical properties of the foam will be described

The existing and composite crash boxes were tested using standard methods. Test data including energy absorption per unit mass and per unit length will be discussed. The mechanism of energy absorption will also be discussed. Results indicate significant improvements in both these areas allowing a meaningful reduction in crash box length for a given energy absorption.

SAE MOBILUS

Subscribers can view annotate, and download all of SAE's content. Learn More »

Access SAE MOBILUS »

Digital $37.00 Print $37.00

Preview Document

We also recommend:

Standards

SAE Mobilus®

Publications

News

Events

Professional Development

A World in Motion (PreK-12)

Participate with SAE

SAE Membership

Donate

Use of Aluminum Foam to Increase Crash Box Efficiency 2005-01-0704

SAE MOBILUS