Very and Ultra High Strength Steels Based Tailored Welded Blanks: A Step Further Towards Crashworthiness Improvement

This paper aims at discussing the crash performances improvements achieved by the used of Very and Ultra High Strength Steels based Tailored Welded Blanks. Particularly we analyze three parts that participate actively in vehicle crashworthiness: the front rail member, the B-pillar reinforcement and the front-end module. Three different crash tests were simulated (AMS offset crash test, European side impact ECE-R 95 and pole test) using specialized FEM crash software. For each part, different solutions are compared in terms of mass saving and crash test performances. We also introduce Press Hardened Steel based TWB that should define, in the near future, new standards in terms of performances for some key components of the body structure.