Abstract
This research deals with experimental impact testing and crashworthiness evaluation of geometrically identical aluminium and magnesium alloy steering wheel armatures. The aluminium wheel was made of a proprietary alloy developed by K S Centoco Ltd. and has a high degree of ductility and the magnesium wheel was made of an alloy from the AM50A magnesium alloy series. The approximate weight reduction achievable by employing the AM50A alloy is 2.98 N (or a 0.304 kg mass reduction). Sixteen different testing conditions were investigated which considered variations in the impact velocity of a rigid plate and the location of impact on the steering wheel armature. A crashworthiness analysis of the experimental results has shown that the aluminium armature has a higher amount of energy absorption than the magnesium armature with approximately equal peak impact loads. The deflections associated with the impact tests are larger for the magnesium armature. The elastic energy response for the magnesium armature is significantly higher than that of the aluminium armature and the aluminium armature is less sensitive to changes in the energy absorption factor for all the testing conditions considered in this study.
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Altenhof, W.J., Ames, W., Frise, P.R. et al. A comparison of the crashworthiness performance of geometrically identical aluminium and magnesium steering wheel armatures. International Journal of Crashworthiness 8, 237–246 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1533/ijcr.2003.0230
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1533/ijcr.2003.0230