Material Model Development of Sandwich Composite: Numerical-Experimental Investigation of Head Dummy Impacting at Vehicle Interior Components

Abstract

This paper shows the applicability of a non-linear Finite Element (FE) methodology to analyse the elasto-plastic behaviour and the energy absorption of a padding noise-protection material applied to the vehicle interior components. This material is a sandwich built from alternating layers of polymeric foam and of glass fibre composite. The approach considers two design steps. The first one involves the experimental characterization of the material while the latter deals with the assessment of the numerical models validated for a full-vehicle crash analysis.