Honda enhances pedestrian protection with modeFRONTIER | www.esteco.com
Using modeFRONTIER to minimize crash deformation of an aluminum hood.
Honda Automobile R&D Center strives to fulfil their social responsibilities as an automaker with respect to environmental conservation, safety and quality assurance. Among these challenges, Honda employed modeFRONTIER software solution to find the optimal vehicle aluminum hood configuration in order to reduce pedestrian head injuries caused by car collisions.
Embossed structure with truncated cone is chosen as conceptual structure
Japanese traffic accident statistics show that more than a thousand of fatalities occur every year mainly due to head injuries. The European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) is widely used to evaluate pedestrian head protection with impacts against vehicles. In addition, car manufacturers are required to reduce vehicle weight to meet CO2 emissions standard. As a result, they have increased the use of aluminum hood which guarantees 40% of weight reduction compared with steel.
However, this normally demands a longer crash deformation for pedestrian protection because the energy absorption characteristics is lower than steel (low inertia and stiffness). Accordingly, aluminum requires increased clearances under the hood together with further restrictions in terms of layout structure. Combining pedestrian protection and weight reduction became a key challenge in the car industry. Engineers at Honda, focused on building an aluminum hood capable of reducing crash deformation and achieving five-star Euro NCAP for head protection.