Crash Simulation of an Automotive Body to Explore Performance of Different Metallic Materials Using ANSYS

In case an automobile body moving with a high velocity crashes into a fixed rigid wall, the frontal section of the automotive body will be deformed and it will absorb a lot of energy due to the impact. Hence, there comes a need to select the material for an automotive body, such that, it will protect the occupant in the car during such an incident. In this paper, a car model representing an automotive body is modelled in the three-dimensional modelling software SOLIDWORKS. Furthermore, ANSYS workbench is used for mesh generation and FEM analysis of the three-dimensional geometric model. Aluminium alloy and structural steel are the materials considered for the automotive body. The automotive body is crashed into the fixed rigid wall at a velocity of 35 mph, and the impact energy is calculated based on stresses on the automotive body and Young’s Modulus for the materials used. The results are plotted and analysed.