Determining the Behavior of Door Impact Beam Tubes Under Three Point Bending Loading

Abstract

Today, traffic accidents are among the leading causes of human death. Deaths and injuries caused by traffic accidents can be brought under control if adequate attention is paid to accident and injury prevention strategies. For this reason, automobile manufacturers have created components that increase safety in the event of a collision, such as airbags, energy-absorbing steering columns, side door impact beams. Side collisions as a secondary critical crash zone after frontal collisions in vehicles are seen as the main cause of death and injuries in traffic accidents [1]. For this reason, developments in the automotive industry are mainly focused on vehicles with high crash resistance and light weight [2]. Studies carried out in the 1960s showed that side collisions are more vulnerable in traffic accidents due to the shorter distance between the door and the passenger compared to a frontal collision in the compartment area on the driver s side [3]. For this reason, General Motors first added a support beam to the side doors of its cars in order to reduce the severity of the impact to the passenger compartment and passengers [4]. The materials of these support beams are expected to have high crash resistance and high toughness. The automotive industry has been in search of materials that can meet these needs. When the steel material group is evaluated together with the weight / strength ratios, it stands out from the non-ferrous materials in terms of critical collisions. In the steel industry, especially after the production of advanced high strength steels (AHSS), these steels have started to take their place in the automotive sector. Among the advanced high strength steels, the steel group named as dual phase (DP) steel has started to be preferred more than other AHSS steels due to their weight / strength ratio and good weldability in assembly [5]. Dual phase (DP) steels are a group of steels that contain ferrite and martensite phases, and the hard martensite phase in its internal structure is found in the form of islands in a soft ferrite matrix in areas close to the grain boundaries. In this way, a steel group with high strength and improved deformation capability was obtained. Compared to the high strength low alloy (HSLA) steel group, which has been used before in DP steels, dual phase steels show more deformation ability at the same strength values [6]. With the use of compliance standards such as Euro NCAP and FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard-214), it has been Research Article