Abstract
Some properties of foamed aluminum were investigated to evaluate potential of utilization of foamed aluminum to an automotive bumper part for improved automotive safety, in terms of compressive and bending test. The experimental test results showed that the compressive strength and bending strength of the foamed aluminum were increased as the density of test material increased from 0.2 [g/cm3] to 0.3 [g/cm3]. In order to predict collision aspects of bumper beams, the CAE simulation were also performed on the foamed aluminum (0.3 g/cm3). The simulation results indicated that no significant differences in deflection were shown in both foamed aluminum bumper compared to the steel bumper beam itself. From actual pole test comparison of the steel bumper beam with foamed aluminum (0.3 and 0.7 g/cm3 in density) based steel bumper beams, however, it was found that with measurements at the center of beams, the deflection of the commercial beam was smaller than that of lowdensity foamed aluminum based beam, but larger than that of higher density foamed aluminum based one.
Keywords: metallic foam, foamed Al, bumper beam, collision analysis, pole test