Applied Bionics and Biomechanics
Volume 2017, Article ID 5894938, 9 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/5894938
Crashworthiness Design for Bionic Bumper Structures Inspired by Cattail and Bamboo
1School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, China
2Key Lab of Bionic Engineering, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhenglei Yu; moc.liamtoh@ielgnehzuy
Received 28 April 2017; Revised 17 August 2017; Accepted 19 September 2017; Published 8 October 2017
Academic Editor: Saurabh Das
Copyright © 2017 Tao Xu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Many materials in nature exhibit excellent mechanical properties. In this study, we evaluated the bionic bumper structure models by using nonlinear finite element (FE) simulations for their crashworthiness under full-size impact loading. The structure contained the structural characteristics of cattail and bamboo. The results indicated that the bionic design enhances the specific energy absorption (SEA) of the bumper. The numerical results showed that the bionic cross-beam and bionic box of the bionic bumper have a significant effect on the crashworthiness of the structure. The crush deformation of bionic cross-beam and box bumper model was reduced by 33.33%, and the total weight was reduced by 44.44%. As the energy absorption capacity under lateral impact, the bionic design can be used in the future bumper body.