Abstract: In order to make the front side member of the car to absorb more energy during frontal crash, thus achieve the purpose of the improvement of the car’s passive safety performance, the reverse spiral cylindrical structure of origami engineering is applied to the structure design of front side member, by using the numerical simulation and optimization design method, to research and development a new type of highly efficient energy absorbing structure. The corresponding finite element model is established, according to the different design parameters of the reverse spiral cylindrical structure, then using LS-DYNA software for the crash simulation, and take the reverse spiral origami structure of different cross-section parameter, rotation angle and the number of segments as design variables, the maximization of energy absorbing as the objective function, response surface method is used for optimization calculation. During the crash, the optimal structure’s crushing wrinkles appear in the folds of the structure, avoiding the slender thin-walled structure instability phenomenon effectively, which is a kind of efficient energy absorption’s deformation mode. Meanwhile, endergonic process smoothly and keep the good energy absorption properties in the entire process of crash, the optimization results that the optimal structure is capable of energy absorption more than that of rectangular cross sectional structure that is used generally.

Key words: Analog simulation, Frontal side member, Optimal design, Response surface methodology, Reverse spiral cylindrical structure