Abstract
Until now, passenger cars are mainly corresponded to the pedestrian protection performance. But nowadays, it is emerging as a important issue to meet the bumper pedestrian performance for the Sports Utility Vehicle. For a SUV bumper system, there are some difficult reasons to meet the pedestrian performance of lower legform. SUV has a high bumper position from ground level and it is also needed to secure the bumper approach angle which has an effect on the car insurance fee. Because of these reasons, it is difficult to meet the pedestrian performance of the lower legform for a SUV.
In this paper, it has been done a comparative study for the various SUV bumper systems, and it is developed a concept model of a SUV bumper system which is expected to meet the pedestrian performance by using Pugh Method. And it has been defined the design control factors to effect the bumper pedestrian performance through the experiences of test and analysis. For the noise factor to effect the pedestrian performance, it has been selected a deviation of impactor position at the impacting moment. The design control factors are optimized by using a Taguchi optimization technique. In Taguchi method, it is used a L18 orthogonal array table of design control factors in the optimization process. Especially, for the optimization of a bumper corner region, it has been done three times optimization analysis to meet the pedestrian performance. Based on these computed results by Taguchi optimization method, the sensitivity of bumper design parameters has been studied and then it is proposed the new SUV bumper system with satisfying the pedestrian performance of lower legform.
This optimized bumper system is estimated to obtain a Euro-NCAP 6 points of full score for a bumper part. And it is validated the pedestrian performance of a optimized bumper system by using the CAE analysis which is proven in accuracy between test and analysis. It is shown a comparative data between test and analysis results for a validation accuracy. By using this optimized SUV bumper system, it can be reduced the test and development cost of a SUV bumper to meet the pedestrian performance of lower legform.
Keywords: Control Factors, Pedestrian Regulation, Design Sensitivity, L18 Orthogonal Array Table, Optimized bumper system