22. Design and Analysis of Car Hood Made with Natural Fibers

In automobile designing, the pedestrian safe design has become one of the key points in the automobile manufacturing sector in order to reduce the injuries occurring during accidents. In general, pedestrians’ head has a maximum tendency to get subjected due to impact force during collisions. Thus, the impact force will be varying based on the hood structure and the materials used to manufacture hood also play a vital role in energy absorption during collisions. In this research, the comparison between conventional fibers and natural fibers is done among glass fiber, carbon fiber, and kenaf natural fiber in layered composition to apply hood structure. Secondly, in this research, another case study is done by varying the structures of the inner panel of the car hood. Thus, In this case study, conical and plane inner panel are analyzed using the static structural method of analysis and later, explicit dynamic analysis is done to understand the behavior of the car hood in case of conical, rectangular, and triangular-framed structure of the inner panel. In this research study it is observed that conical had is stiffer when compared to conventional structure and comparatively it high deformation when compared to triangular and rectangular structures, it is observed that the energy absorption capacity of conical head structure in inner panel of car hood reduces injury during collision. In this project, first, different parts of hood are taken from the literature review that is designed using Creo parametric 2.0. So, there is a need for design optimization without compromising on the strength. Design optimization is done on various hood designs to reduce weight. Due to this optimization, the weight of the body is radically reduced for natural fibers. Static structural analysis is done on the model after optimization using Ansys 16.2 software. Finally, static structural analysis has been carried on the optimized body and the result showed that the pedestrian is safe.