ABSTRACT
The current impact attenuator used by the Formula Student team of University of Lisbon is an out-of-shelf solution consisting in an aluminium honeycomb. The competition regulations defined for the impact attenuator’s design allow room for innovation, which can be used to build more efficient structures and explore new materials. The main objective of this work is to design and optimize a composite impact attenuator lighter than the solution currently used by the team. Experimental results and numerical models presented in previous works are considered in the development of a new approach. Several design parameters are studied and their influence on the behaviour of the impact attenuators are taken into account. Direct Multisearch (DMS) algorithm directly coupled to Abaqus software is used to perform the optimizations. The lighter solutions’ mass is compared to the baseline aluminium structure’s and detailed descriptions are presented for chosen optimal designs, which constitute an improvement regarding the baseline’s mass.
