Hi readers,
apologies for the lack of updates. The other courses have been taking its toll on me. Anyway progress so far has been rather lacking,
first up, the a-pillars are finally tested on the rig and the results are published. We had a little trouble getting some info off the machine as the output files only opens up through the Bluehill specific program and since none of us have any prior experience on the rig, it was a 'blind leading the blind' approach. Overall it was a good positive progress. I manage to extrapolate the data through the graphs the Bluehill test rig produced.
The first test was placing the pillar transverse-wise to the machine and perform a stress and depression test targeted at the centre of the pillar.
using those figures, I manage to recalculate the stress and pressure taken by the pillar before its yielding point. The figure calculated was 1.22 kN with a deflection of 40mm
The 2nd test was performed on the longitudinal direction of the pillar, by compressing it from the top to the bottom, we are able to identify the forces and pressures involved in the event of a frontal crash. which transmit the forces coming from the front of the car through to the pillars and off to the rest of the structure after the pillar.
The extrapolated data from the graph shows a force of 24.45 kN before the yielding point, this is the maximum value taken by the pillar before failure. Assuming we set the yielding point as the failure point. The deflection was 11 mm which is the length of the machine compressed.
Here are the after pictures showing the pillars after the test.
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| Test 2 - The result vs the original unit |
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| Test 2 - Failure point upclosed |
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| similar point on the original unit |
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| Test 2 (longitudinal direction) |
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| Test 1 - the result |
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| Test 2 - the result (alternate view) |
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| Test 2 - the result (alternate view 2) |
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| Test 2 - The result vs the original unit |
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| Test 2 - The result vs the original unit (alternate view) |
