Automotive manufacturers rely on rigorous testing and simulations to construct their vehicles durable and safe in all aspects. One such vital factor is crash safety, otherwise known as crashworthiness. Crash tests are conventional forms of non-destructive methods to validate the vehicle for its crashworthiness and compatibility based on different operating conditions. The frontal impact test is the most primary form of crash test, which focuses on improving passenger's safety and comfort. According to NHTSA, a vehicle is rated based on these safety criteria, for which automobile manufacturers conduct a plethora of crash-related studies. Numerical simulation aids them in cutting down testing time and overall cost endured by providing a reliable amount of insights into the process. The current study is aimed at improving the crashworthiness of a crash box in a lightweight passenger car, such that it becomes more energy absorbent in terms of frontal impacts. All necessary parameters such as energy absorption, mean crush force, specific energy absorption, crush force efficiencies are evaluated based on analytical and finite element methods. There was a decent agreement between the analytical and simulation results, with an accuracy of 97%. The crashworthiness of the crash box was improved with the help of DOE-based response surface methodology (RSM). The RSM approach helped in improving the design of the crash box with enhanced EA & CFE by 30% and 8.8% respectively. The investigation of design variables on the energy absorption capacity of the thin-walled structure was also done. For the axial impact simulations, finite element solver Virtual Performance Solution − Pam Crash from the ESI group is used.

Recent researches on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE) studies widely focus on wind pressure coefficients and wind flow field for the aerodynamic design of buildings, urban planning and dispersion studies. Nowadays, CWE had been widely used for identifying the critical wind locations on the field for warning the pedestrians as well as harnessing the wind. Hence, highly functional regions like universities are currently equipping micro wind turbines, and roof-mounted wind turbines to meet their demands. This study focused on exploiting the wind flow conditions around the premises and wind force characteristics of the buildings situated at VIT Chennai premises for effective utilization of wind energy and determining the hot spots of unfavourable wind. By introducing CFD simulation earlier into the design process, it is easy to assess the wind resource conditions, pedestrian safety and comfort. However, the accuracy and reliability of CFD simulations can easily be compromised. For this reason, several sets of best practice guidelines have been developed in the past decades. Based on the best practices, this work presents the CFD simulation and framework for evaluating pedestrian comfort and possible areas to commission small wind turbines in the VIT campus. The simulations for assessing the wind flow conditions are carried out based on the k-∊ realizable turbulent model with high-quality grid-based convergence. The preliminary results can ensure wind comfort, safety and wind resources with CFD and add to enriched wind environmental quality in living.

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