A new index U* which represents load paths in structures was applied to a truck cab under collision. After obtaining the deformed body by a dynamic crash simulation, U* for the extracted deformed body was statically calculated. The distributions of U* were compared with the values of U** obtained in our previous report. The U* and U** distributions show almost the same pattern. However, the absolute value of U* is larger than U** by about 1.6 times. The difference is inevitable because of the difference in their definitions. The concepts of U*sum and its histogram were used to express the effectiveness of the load transfer. Using these expressions, it was shown that the main member of this cab transfers the loading effectively.

The strain rate sensitivity of polypropylene syntactic foams with polymer microballoons in the relative density from 0.5 to 0.8 is studied at the nominal strain rate ranged from 10-1 to 102 s -1. Two equations of matrix materials are introduced to represent the viscoelastic properties, and another two equations are proposed with respect to the parameters of matrix materials to estimate the elastic moduli and yield stresses of polymeric syntactic foams.

A Microscopic Study on Local Strain Rate Sensitivity of Polypropylene Syntactic Foam with Microballoons