Within the automotive environment, protection of vulnerable road users (VRU) is now a high profile issue. Owing to this fact, the European Standards for vehicle design are actively seeking to establish a balance between safety and weight of automobiles. Various research groups are working at an International level to develop assessment methodologies to evaluate the ''Aggressivity'' of automobiles. Statistics in Figure 1 indicate a high number of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) -Pedestrian accidents even though on a decreasing trend [1] constitute a real public health problem. To that effect a vital protocol is needed to alleviate this problem by aiming at injury mitigation in such collision scenarios bearing in mind the increasing demand for fuel efficiency, low cost, and low weight alternatives.This paper presents one of the solutions that aim at reducing injury, fatality, or disablement to pedestrians during a HGV-pedestrian crash by employing a novel energy absorbing aluminum ''egg-box'' panel system into the design. Based on the experimental observations, this work satisfies, as part of an EU project APROSYS, [2] its objectives of improving pedestrian safety.Research on potential energy absorbing structures has been going on for over five decades. The studies have been on the deformation and collapse patterns that quantify energy absorption capability for a particular application. Metallic energy absorbers have become popular. Some of the conventional energy absorbers are metal tubes, rings, thin-walled shells, and box-columns. [3,4] Apart from conventional energy absorbers, metallic honeycombs and foams have gained prominence in the recent past for lightweight options but they lag in cost-effectiveness to be employed into vehicle construction. Wierzbicki [5] has researched about the crushing of metal honey-combs. In this work, it was inferred that the structure deformed by means of stationary and moving plastic hinges. In the recent past, metallic foams are gaining increasing interest for their appreciable energy absorption properties and lightweight. Ashby et al. [6] and many others have studied the properties, structure, and design of metal foams. They have been successful in proving the good energy absorption capability of these cellular materials.
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