Modelling of CFRP crushing structures in explicit crash analysis

The weight reduction has become a key driver in the automotive design. The study and the simulations of non-conventional materials, has become very important. This work is focused on the numerical crashworthiness design of carbon fibres reinforced plastics (CFRP) structures. After a literature research on the currently numerical models specifically used for CFRP, two different numerical models were developed in order to reproduce experimental crush test on CFRP tube previously made. The influence of several different parameters on the final results was analysed. The work put in evidence the advantages of crushing zone modelling compared to a stacked shell one