Development of Simplified Truck Chassis Model for Crashworthiness Analysis

In this paper bending resistance of thin-walled channel beam is applied to create simplified model for truck chassis. In the simplified model, beam and nonlinear spring elements are used to model the side-rails, and equivalent beams are applied to represent the cross members. Both detailed and simplified models are used for crashworthiness analyses, and the results are recorded and compared. Relatively good agreement is achieved between these analyses, while the computing time is significantly reduced for the presented modeling method.