This paper provides a premise and the motivation for making a case for lightweight vehicle body structures, with embedded functionality, using actively controlled materials. Such active materials have the ability to change the structural properties in the event of varying conditions, including dynamic loading and vibrations, with the extreme scenario being that of a collision. Prompted by ever stringent legislation concerning crashworthiness and CO2 emissions, coupled with the fact that all new vehicles in the future will be fully equipped with advanced driver-assisted systems, including on-board active safety systems, the paper proposes a strategy for actively controlling the energy absorption of the vehicle body structure. The concept of an active buckling control approach, while still in its early development stage, is described. Encouraging results have been obtained via simulation, and the potential control approach for specifying a buckling load, related to the smallest positive buckling eigenvalue, hence onset of energy absorption, is discussed. It is conjectured that an active buckling control approach may become part of future legislation for testing vehicle body structures, where the issues of compatibility and reduced aggressivity are deemed to become compulsory.

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The paper challenges the current state-of-the-art which is accepted by the automotive industry. Present day vehicles are unsophisticatedly over-engineered and, as a consequence, are uneconomic, hence unsustainable. Vehicles currently under development, however, offer tremendous opportunities for shifting from this position to include onboard active safety systems, e.g. collision avoidance. It is argued that future vehicles should be significantly lighter and exploit the developing safety features to the full. Indeed, such a development would reduce the existing need for crashworthiness. The above arguments coupled with parallel developments in smart materials, paves the way towards a new generation of actively controlled vehicle architecture design. Whilst the move to lighter vehicles, with onboard active safety systems and actively controlled structures, may be seen as controversial, there is a convincing case for a paradigm shift towards a truly sustainable transport future.