CRASH SIMULATION OF THE PHYSICAL PARAMETERS OF A LONGITUDINAL STEEL BEAM INCORPORATING THE FORMING PROCESS

The shape of a longitudinal steel beam is industrially obtained by sta mping. The material is then submitted to a sever predeformation on cer tain faces of the beam. In order to estimate its influence on the mech anical behaviour of the material and on the crushing performance of th e beams, we compare the behaviour of stamped beams to that of folded o nes. Static and dynamic tests have been conducted to fit the elastopla stic law used by the crushing simulation code RADIOSS. Calculations ha ve been carried out with the resulting laws and dynamic crushing tests have been performed as a validation of these results.