Abstract: A finite element model of moving deformable barrier(MDB) based on shell element is built by applying the shell element technology according to real structure of the honeycomb. For the situation of huge number of elements caused by shell element modeling as the same size of physics state, cell size and element size is enlarged by the identical scale, which reduce the number of elements significantly. The out-of-plane compression simulation is executed to obtain the relationship between the thickness of shell elements comprising a honeycomb and compressive strength, a parameter study using a test piece is performed to achieve the compressive strength of the actual part. The air pressure effect is obtained from with the results of punch tests by subtracting static punch test result from dynamic punch test result. Material failure is applied to simulate the failure phenomena of aluminum foil and the glue between the foil and the cover board during the crash. The MDB model based on shell element shows high precision when the analysis results are compared to the results of a component crush test and a side impact test.

Key words: Honeycomb, Material failure, Moving deformable barrier, Shell element, Side impact, Simple airbag, Size scaling