Towards a Micromechanical Damage Model for Lightweight Materials in Vehicle Crash

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The 2012 U.S. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) targets mandating a 50% cut in fuel consumption by 2025 have supercharged research and innovation within the automotive industry. To reach these targets without compromising occupant safety, next generation materials such as ultra high strength steels, high strength aluminum and magnesium alloys are being rapidly developed and implemented into a lightweight multi-material vehicle architecture. Although these materials offer tremendous potential for lightweighting, they also bring ever shrinking process design windows due to their complex material behaviour and fracture sensitivity. Consequently, advanced forming operations at elevated temperatures are required to avoid the low ductility of these materials at room temperature. To stay competitive in the high volume, low cost environment of automotive manufacturing, computer assisted engineering (CAE) is required to design the component, tooling, forming process and predict its performance in a vehicle crash. The complicated mechanical behaviour of these lightweight alloys coupled with the need for advanced forming operations far exceeds the capabilities of today’s numerical models. The proposed research will address this critical shortfall in the CAE fracture models to capitalize on the potential of these emerging material systems for lightweighting.