Crushzone Design

The crushzone I designed is completely unique for the FSAE vehicle. No other team design resembles this design. The crushzone was tested analytically using LS DYNA. The Head Injury Criteria was 257 for a 30 km/hr head on collision. The Head Injury Criteria (HIC) is the limiting factor during a crash. Click here to see the video. The HIC formula was developed through physical crash testing. According to FMVSS a HIC > 1000 is fatal for a crash, therefore the crushzone design is extremely safe. To further prove the feasibility of the crushzone for an FSAE vehicle, physical testing was done. The 6061-T4 aluminum tubes were placed in a Tinius Oisen machine and crushed to they were completely densified. I define the term densified as when the force greatly increases with very little displacement. This is shown on the graphs below.

The figure below shows the Force Vs Displacement graph of one individual crush tube. The following figure below shows the the deformation modes of the aluminum tube.