Automobile Roof Crush Analysis with Abaqus

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandates the use of certain test procedures to determine automobile roof crush resistance. In the test the force-deflection behavior of the roof structure is meas-ured by quasi-statically pressing a precisely positioned rigid plate against the automobile. As part of the design process, the test is often simulated analytically. As with many quasi-static processes, the roof crush resis-tance test can be simulated in Abaqus/Standard or Abaqus/Explicit. In this technology brief the modeling techniques used for each analysis product are presented, and it is shown that both products can be used to simu-late a roof crush resistance test effectively.