Influence of Chassis and Driveline Components in Vehicle Frontal Crash

With increased focus on new vehicle crash safety, vehicle structures are being developed to sustain more demanding frontal crash conditions such as, offset, angular, and pole impacts. To manage the higher amount of impact energy, vehicle body components are designed for higher strength and stiffness resulting in increased vehicle weight. As an alternative, a more efficient design concept involving the chassis, suspension and driveline components are studied here. Attempts are made to investigate how the non-body structure components of a vehicle can be deployed to absorb crash energy that may lessen the demand on the body-in-white. Contribution of underbody chassis subframe & cross-members, the suspension control arms and the drive-shaft components are evaluated using analytical methods for effective use in frontal impact conditions. Ideas are explored to improve the vehicle crash pulse and reduce passenger compartment intrusions in frontal impacts by employing sub-frame, drive shaft and suspension control arms more effectively.