Composite Structures 68 (2005) 491503 www.elsevier.

com/locate/compstruct

Progressive crushing of ber-reinforced composite structural components of a Formula One racing car
Chiara Bisagni
a

a,*

, Giuseppe Di Pietro a, Lara Fraschini b, Davide Terletti

Available online 4 June 2004

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Aerospaziale, Politecnico di Milano, Via La Masa 34, 20156 Milano, Italy b Ferrari GeS, Via Ascari 55/57, 41053 Maranello, Modena, Italy

Abstract The present paper describes an experimental and numerical investigation on energy absorbers for Formula One side impact and steering column impact. The crash tests are performed measuring the load-shortening diagram and the energy absorbed by the structure. A nite element model is then developed using the non-linear, explicit dynamic code LS-DYNA. To set up the numerical model, tubes crushing testing are conducted to determine the material failure modes and to characterise them with LS-DYNA. The results presented in this study show that the composite structural components of the investigated Formula One racing car possess high value of specic absorbed energy and crash load eciency around 1.1. The nite element simulations accurately predict the overall shape, magnitude and pulse duration in all the types of impact as well as the deformation and failure of the structures. Comparing the numerical data of the specic absorbed energy to the experimental results, the dierences are around 10%. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Energy absorber; Composite structures; Failure mechanism; Formula One racing car; Finite element analyses

1. Introduction The Federation Internationale De LAutomobile (FIA) has started in 1963 to ask safety requirements that have brought nowadays to a variety of safety systems used in Formula One [1]. They include arrester beds, safety barriers, reinforced survival cells, collapsible steering columns, safety belts, helmets and headrests and provide an excellent level of pilot protection during the vast majority of accidents so that it is increasingly rare for a pilot to suer an injury during an accident. Safety requirements are prescribed for the circuit, the car and the pilot equipment. In particular the cars are subjected to a number of tests, both static and dynamic, to ensure that the required level of safety performance is achieved. Each of these tests is performed in a laboratory under controlled conditions and in the presence of a FIA technical delegate. Four types of impact are requested for the survival cell: frontal, rear, side and steering column. All the four types of impact involve composite structures, that absorb a high amount of
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-02-2399-8390; fax +39-02-23998334. E-mail address: chiara.bisagni@polimi.it (C. Bisagni). 0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compstruct.2004.04.015
*

energy by means of a complex combination of fracture mechanisms including matrix cracking, delamination and ber breakage. Nowadays most of the research on the energy absorption of composite materials has been limited to the axial compression of tubolar structures and most of the research done has been experimental [26]. To date, only a few models have been proposed to predict the energy absorption characteristics of tubolar structures [7,8]. With no doubt, the validation of analytical and numerical tools for accurate simulation of structural response to crash impacts is an important aspect of crashworthiness research. Indeed, crash modelling and simulation may be used during the design phase to study the response of the structures to dynamic crash loads and to predict occupant response to impact with probability of injury. Some studies can then be found in literature, concerning composite fuselage sections for light aircraft [9] as well as composite helicopter structures [1013] or automotive structures [14,15] but they are still few and do not cover all the composite structure modelling. It is much more dicult to nd data regarding impact tests [16] or simulation of Formula One composite survival cells due to the condentiality of the data.

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The present paper describes the results of an experimental investigation and nite element analysis of some composite structures impacts of a Formula One racing car. In particular, energy absorbers for Formula One side impact and steering column impact are investigated. They are collapsible absorbers of crash energy, i.e. structural members that are able to absorb large amounts of impact energy, while collapsing progressively in a controlled manner. To set up the numerical model of the energy absorbers, tubes crushing testing are at rst performed and simulated.

are recorded using an incremental encoder and an accelerometer with 200 g full-scale. The measured acceleration is ltered at 180 Hz using a CFC 180 lter [17]. Six fabric tubes and three unidirectional tubes are tested. After the tests, the diagrams representing the variation of the load with the shortening are analysed and some important parameters for crash resistance are computed: peak load, that is the maximum load of the loadshortening diagram; average crush load, that is obtained dividing the area under the load-shortening diagram by the shortening of the structure; absorbed energy, that corresponds to the area under the load-shortening diagram; residual height; residual weight; specic absorbed energy, that is the absorbed energy per unit of the crushed structure mass; crush load eciency, that is equal to the ratio between the peak load and the average load; use ratio (stroke eciency), that is the ratio between the nal shortening of the structure and its initial height. Fig. 1 shows the load versus displacement curves of the tested tubes in fabric lamina, designated as C3, C28, C29, C30, C31 and C32, and of the tested tubes in unidirectional lamina, designated as B1, B4 and B7. For both types of tubes, the load-shortening curves are similar to the ideal one that would have a rectangular shape. Only the axial load of the unidirectional tubes uctuates with small peaks. The carbon-bers composite specimens absorb energy by a continuous crushing
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2. Experimental crash tests of the ber-reinforced composite tubes The tubes present a height of 300 mm, an internal radius of 35 mm and a thickness of 1.12 mm. All the specimens have a 45 outside chamfer, so that the crushing initiates in the highly stressed region at the tip of the chamfer and then develops into a stable crush zone. Two series of tubes are investigated with dierent type of lamina: fabric lamina in carbon bers and unidirectional lamina in carbon bers. The rst series of tubes is made of four fabric lamina oriented [45/)45]S , while the second series is made of eight unidirectional lamina oriented [45/)45]2S so to present the same thickness. The 0 direction coincides with the axis of the tube. The experimental tests are performed at the Department of Aerospace Engineering of Politecnico di Milano using a drop test machine with a 6.5 m free-fall height. The impact mass used is 110 kg and the initial velocity is 8.4 m/s. During the tests, every cylinder is supported at the bottom edge on a metallic base with air holes. The acceleration and the displacement of the impact mass
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Fig. 1. Load-shortening diagrams of the crash tests: fabric tubes and unidirectional tubes.

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The fabric specimens present a slightly better crash behaviour. Indeed the average load is equal to 20.36 kN, compared to 19.4 kN for the unidirectional specimens and the specic absorbed energy is equal to 56.33 kJ/kg compared to 51.61 kJ/kg, that means about 9% higher. The crash load eciency and the use ratio are practically the same.

3. Finite element analysis of the ber-reinforced composite tubes All the nite element analyses of the investigation reported in this paper are performed using the commercial code LS-DYNA [18], that has been developed especially for impact and non-linear dynamic simulations. It is an explicit nite element code, which uses a Lagrangian formulation. The equations of motion are integrated in time explicitly using central dierences. The method requires very small time steps for a stable solution, thus is particularly suitable for impact and crash simulation, and the governing equations do not require global stiness matrix assembly or inversion. The code contains materials model for metals and composites and easy and ecient contact algorithms. The cylinders are modelled by four-node shell elements with BelytschkoLinTsai formulation [18]. A multi-layered shell is used with one integration point per

Fig. 2. Failure mode of the fabric tubes and the unidirectional tubes.

process through various combinations of failure mechanisms such as ber breaking, delamination, interlaminar cracks propagating between layers in the crushed zone and so on. For both the congurations, the damaged part is reduced in fragment pieces and pulverised material, while the residual part of the tube results perfectly integer (Fig. 2). The important parameters for crash resistance obtained from the tests of the two congurations are reported in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The tables report also the average values.
Table 1 Experimental crash tests results of the fabric tubes C3 Initial weight [g] Impact velocity [m/s] Peak load [kN] Average load [kN] Absorbed energy [kJ] Residual height [mm] Residual weight [g] Specic absorbed energy [kJ/kg] Crush load eciency Use ratio 113.0 8.36 17.82 16.25 3.84 88 33.3 48.09 1.10 0.71 C28 116.4 8.40 23.35 20.63 3.88 114 44.2 53.76 1.13 0.62 C29 117.4 8.49 22.71 20.28 3.96 120 46.1 56.22 1.12 0.60

C30 118.1 8.35 27.34 25.77 3.84 146 61.8 63.34 1.06 0.51

C31 117.1 8.49 22.04 18.79 3.97 135 55.0 61.64 1.17 0.55

C32 114.6 8.41 22.35 20.43 3.88 115 44.0 54.90 1.09 0.62

Average values 116.1 8.42 22.60 20.36 3.90 119 47.4 56.33 1.11 0.60

Table 2 Experimental crash tests results of the unidirectional tubes B1 Initial weight [g] Impact velocity [m/s] Peak load [kN] Average load [kN] Absorbed energy [kJ] Residual height [mm] Residual weight [g] Specic absorbed energy [kJ/kg] Crush load eciency Use ratio 116 8.30 22.41 19.31 3.97 100 40 51.34 1.16 0.67 B4 114 8.46 21.49 19.72 4.10 94 36 52.38 1.09 0.69 B7 114 8.45 21.32 19.17 4.02 93 34 51.11 1.11 0.69 Average values 115 8.40 21.74 19.40 4.03 96 37 51.61 1.12 0.68

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layer. This means that four integration points are used for the fabric tube and eight integration points for the unidirectional tube. A moving rigid wall with a nite mass and an impact velocity equal to 110 kg and 8.4 m/s, respectively, represents the impact mass, while a stationary rigid wall represents the ground. A master-surface to slave-node contact is dened between the impact surface and the nodes of the cylinders, as well as between the ground and the nodes of the cylinders. Then a self-contact algorithm based on the penalty formulation is dened on the mesh surface to prevent the elements to penetrate and to provide the friction between the parts of the specimen during deformation. In the preliminary analyses, the carbon-ber composite is modelled using three dierent material types of LS-DYNA [18]. Each of them implements a dierent failure criterion. In particular the experimental tests on the tubes are simulated using the material type 54, that implements the ChangChang criteria, the material type 55, that implements the TsaiWu criteria, and the material type 58, that implements a smooth failure surface. From the dierent simulations, it is obtained that only the material type 55 is able to give an average load comparable to the experimental one for both the tubes congurations. Besides the TsaiWu failure criteria gives a numerical behaviour near to the experimental one, as it avoids the ductile behaviour obtained with the other two failure criteria. The TsaiWu failure criteria denes the following failure limit: tensile ber mode: raa > 0 ) e2 f  2    raa rab P0 b 1 <0 Xt Sc Ea Eb Gab mba mab 0 compressive ber mode:   2 raa P0 1 raa < 0 ) e2 c <0 Xc Ea mba mab 0 tensile and compressive matrix mode:  2 r2 rab bb e2 md Yc Yt Sc  P 0 failed Yc Yt rbb 1 Yc Yt < 0 elastic Eb mba mab 0 ) Gab 0 where Xt is the longitudinal tensile strength, Xc is the longitudinal compressive strength, Yt is the transverse

tensile strength, Yc is the transverse compressive strength and Sc is the shear strength. For b 1 the rst criteria of Hashin of 1980 is obtained in the tensile ber direction, while for b 0 a criteria on the maximum stress is obtained, that gives better values in comparison to the experimental results. The material model 55 allows also eliminating elements if the maximum eective strain exceeds a prescribed value. Indeed, to avoid ductile behaviour and consequent large-scale folding, it is important to remove the element strength at some point. This removing elements method is based on a time-step failure parameter (TFAIL), that allows to dene a limit to the element deformation so to be able to reproduce the brittle behaviour of the material and, at the same time, to contain the time-step and so to reduce the CPU time of the analyses. Three analyses were performed with TFAIL parameter equal to 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8. Increasing the time-step failure parameter, the average load, the residual height and the specic absorbed energy get closer to the experimental values. Besides the material model behaviour is more brittle, simulating the real material behaviour as several elements are cancelled and some elements are detached from the rest of the tube reproducing the fragment pieces and pulverised material. Consequently for all the following analyses a TFAIL parameter equal to 0.8 is chosen. Then a non-linear stressstrain behaviour is introduced for the shear behaviour through the cubic relation: sxy c as3 4 xy Gxy This relation is obtained to modify the failure criteria and in particular it modies the part related to the shear that compares in the quadratic failure criteria. The following term is dened: s2 3 4 as 4 ~ s 2G 2 S 3 4 aS 2G 4

failed elastic

failed elastic

that is the ratio between the shear stress and the shear strength S . Knowing the shear strength of the fabric lamina and of the unidirectional lamina a value of the non-linear parameter a is estimated. After a mesh sensitivity analysis a cylinder uniform mesh of 5338 elements is chosen. In this case a typical 60 ms simulation took about 4 CPU hours for the fabric tube and about 12 CPU hours for the unidirectional tube on a PC computer with 2.4 GHz processor. The total energy in the model is the sum of the kinetic energy, internal structural energy, contact energy, rigid wall energy, that is the energy dissipated in friction during the contact between the structure and the rigid

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wall, and hourglass energy, that exists due to the underintegration of the BelytschkoLinTsai shell elements. The total energy obtained with the nite element analysis is 3.9 kJ and remains about constant during the simulation. Most of the energy is absorbed as internal energy. At the end of the simulation, the hourglass energy is about 10% of the internal energy, while the rigid wall energy and the contact energy are only small per-

centage. The cancelled elements at the end of the simulation are 2992 for the fabric tube and 2358 for the unidirectional tube, that means about half of the elements of the tube mesh. The deformed shape for the unidirectional cylinder is shown at dierent response time in Fig. 3, while that one of the fabric cylinder is not reported as it is qualitatively similar.

Fig. 3. Sequence of the deformation and Von Mises stresses of the unidirectional tube.

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The numerical and experimental load-shortening curves are compared in Fig. 4, while the crash parameters obtained from the experimental tests are reported together to the numerical results in Tables 3 and 4, respectively for the two lay-ups. For the comparison, the experimental data of the tube C3 for fabric lamina and of the tube B4 for the unidirectional lamina are taken. As the experimental data, also the numerical ones are ltered with the same lter at 180 Hz. From the comparison of the diagrams and from the deformed shape at dierent response time, it is evident that the nite element model is able to simulate the brittle composite material behaviour with material separation from the specimens and consequently approximates the absorbed energy with very good accuracy. For both the conguration, the dierences on the absorbed energy, the average load, the specic absorbed energy and use ratio are lower than 10%, whereas the dierence on the rst peak load are about 20%, due to the diculty to simulate the rst fragmentation phase.

4. Energy absorber for Formula One side impact A Formula One racing car is designed with four impact structures: front, rear, side and steering column. Regarding the side impact structures, the FIA test procedure [1] prescribes the side test, that must be performed with an impact mass of 780 kg travelling at a velocity of 10 m/s. The resistance of the test structure must be such that during the impact: the average deceleration of the object, measured in the direction of impact, does not exceed 20 g; the force applied to any one of the four impactor segments does not exceed 80 kN for more than a cumulative 3 ms; the energy absorbed by each of the four impactor segments must be between 15% and 35% of the total energy absorption. Furthermore, all structural damage must be contained within the impact absorbing structure.

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Fig. 4. Numerical and experimental load-shortening diagrams: fabric tubes and unidirectional tubes. Table 3 Comparison between the experimental and numerical results of the fabric tubes Experimental test Initial weight [g] Impact velocity [m/s] Peak load [kN] Average load [kN] Absorbed energy [kJ] Residual height [mm] Residual weight [g] Specic absorbed energy [kJ/kg] Crush load eciency Use ratio 113.0 8.36 17.82 16.25 3.84 88 33.3 48.09 1.1 0.71 Numerical analysis 119 8.4 22.24 16.34 3.88 72.65 28.82 43.1 1.36 0.75 Dierence (%) 5.0 0.47 19.8 0.58 1.02 17.43 13.45 10.36 19.1 6.3

C. Bisagni et al. / Composite Structures 68 (2005) 491503 Table 4 Comparison between the experimental and numerical results of the unidirectional tubes Experimental test Initial weight [g] Impact velocity [m/s] Peak load [kN] Average load [kN] Absorbed energy [kJ] Residual height [mm] Residual weight [g] Specic absorbed energy [kJ/kg] Crush load eciency Use ratio 114 8.46 21.49 19.72 4.10 94 36 52.38 1.09 0.69 Numerical analysis 119 8.4 26.87 18.43 3.86 93.1 36.9 47.08 1.44 0.69 Dierence (%) 4.2 0.7 20.0 6.55 5.78 0.9 2.56 10.1 24.0 0.07

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Consequently the energy absorber for the side impact is a structure that has the only function to absorb energy during the impact with a controlled damage so that all the damage are contained within the impact absorbing structure. Besides, the energy absorber does not require a post-crush integrity, but must absorb energy without high peak load, to avoid high deceleration to the pilot. The space available for the energy absorber is limited by the aerodynamic, the dimensions of the survival cell, the external dimensions, the presence of the lateral air intake and of the radiators, as shown in Fig. 5. The used energy absorber is reported in Fig. 6, where all the dimensions are in millimeters. It consists of a conical structure with a circular section. The conical structure is important as it allows to obtain a major stability during the progressive crushing, while the circular section helps to distribute uniformly the stresses in the section avoiding longitudinal failure, as happens in the square section where the corners generate stress concentration. The hemispherical top allows following the aerodynamic curvature using at the same time all the available space for absorbing energy. The sequence of lamina for the energy absorber is the same of the tubes in carbon fabric.

Fig. 6. Geometric characteristic and tridimensional rendering of the energy absorbers for the side impact.

Fig. 5. Position of the energy absorbers for the side impact and of the steering column.

The experimental tests are performed on two structures with the same drop tests machine used for the cylindrical specimens, but with an impact mass of 208 kg and an impact velocity of 10 m/s. Fig. 7 shows some photos of the structures before and after the tests. It is possible to see the brittle failure with fragment pieces of dierent sizes that are detached and in parts are deposed inside the structure. Fig. 8 shows the loaddisplacement curves for the two performed tests, while Table 5 reports the most signicant parameters obtained from the two tests and the average values. The analysis of the load displacement curves allows noting two dierent phases: an initial transient phase and a progressive stable crush phase. The rst part of the initial transient phase is related to the hemispherical top, while the second one is related to the conical structure with circular section. The rst part has stiness equal to 370 N/mm against 710 N/ mm of the second part.

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Fig. 7. Failure mode of the energy absorbers for the side impact.

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Fig. 8. Experimental load-shortening diagrams of the two energy absorbers for the side impact.

Fig. 9. Numerical and experimental load-shortening diagrams of energy absorber for the side impact.

The nite element analysis of the energy absorber for the side impact is conducted with the information obtained from the simulation of the cylindrical specimens. The mesh presents elements of about 3.2 3.5 mm, except for the hemispherical top where there are also smaller and not regular elements. The total number of elements for the energy absorber is equal to 9200. The
Table 5 Experimental crash tests results of the energy absorbers for the side impact First specimen Impact velocity [m/s] Maximum load [kN] Average load [kN] Absorbed energy [kJ] Residual height [mm] Crush load eciency 9.99 48.88 33.40 10.37 30 1.46

structure is modelled by four-node shell elements with BelytschkoLinTsai formulation [18], using seven points of integration for each element. The impact mass is modelled with a rigid wall moving. A self-contact algorithm, dened on the mesh surface and based on the penalty formulation of LSDYNA, prevents the elements to penetrate and provides

Second specimen 9.97 43.39 34.98 10.33 48 1.24

Average values 9.98 46.14 34.19 10.35 39 1.35

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Fig. 10. Sequence of the deformation and Von Mises stresses of the energy absorber for the side impact.

the friction between the parts of the structure during deformation. The model required approximately 9 CPU hours to simulate 60 ms on a PC computer with 2.4 GHz processor. The total energy obtained with the nite element analysis is 10 kJ and remains about constant during the simulation. Most of the energy is absorbed as internal

energy. At the end of the simulation, internal energy is 80% of total energy, while hourglass energy is 5%, rigid wall energy is 3% and contact energy is 12% of total energy. The cancelled elements at the end of the simulation are 5931. The load-shortening diagram of the cruciform specimen, obtained by the nite element analysis, is represented in Fig. 9, where it is compared to the

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Table 6 Comparison between the experimental and numerical results of the energy absorbers for the side impact Experimental test Impact velocity [m/s] Maximum load [kN] Average load [kN] Absorbed energy [kJ] Residual height [mm] Crush load eciency 9.97 43.39 34.98 10.33 48 1.24 Numerical analysis 10 42.91 33.11 10.25 48.44 1.29 Dierence (%) 0.3 1.11 5.34 0.75 0.91 4.31

experimental one. The comparisons are favourable, except for the rst transient phase and the rst peak load that is more marked in the simulation. The sequence of the energy absorber deformation is presented in Fig. 10. From the rst deformation it is possible to see that there are relevant failure along the hemispherical top that gradually propagate dening the failure of the cone. This failure causes a step in the loadshortening curve from 35 to 25 kN. Table 6 compares the crash parameters obtained from the tests and the analyses: the dierences are lower than 6%.

behaviour of the absorbing structure can be correctly simulated. The steering wheel, the adjustable distance tube, the connection ange and the safety quick release are modelled as rigid body as only their inertial contribution is important and not their elastic response. The steering

5. Formula One steering column In 1997, the FIA introduced the impact test on the steering column. This test is of fundamental importance as the rst element that goes in contact with the pilot head in case of a frontal impact is the steering column. If it is not able to absorb correctly the impact, it can cause serious injuries to the pilot. The FIA test procedure [1] prescribes the steering column test, that must be performed with an impact mass of 8 kg travelling at a velocity of 7 m/s. The impact mass must be hemispherical with a diameter of 165 mm. The resistance of the test structure must be such that during the impact the peak deceleration of the object does not exceed 80 g for more than cumulative 3 ms, this being measured only in the direction of impact. After the test, all substantial deformation must be within the steering column and the steering wheel quick release mechanism must still function normally. Fig. 5 shows the position of the total steering column in a Formula One car. It is composed from several elements: steering wheel, adjustable distance tube, connection ange and safety quick release and then the absorbing structure. Two are so the parts important for the pilot safety: the connection ange and safety quick release, that allow the immediate extraction of the steering wheel and consequently of the pilot, and the absorbing structure, that is a tubular structure in ber reinforced composite. The objective in this study is to understand which are the most important phase of the interaction between the impact mass and the entire structure and to verify if the

Fig. 11. Two details of the nite element model of the steering column.

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Fig. 12. Numerical and experimental load-shortening diagrams of the steering column.

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column is modelled with 1000 shell elements with mean dimension of 7 7 mm as its elastic response is very important. The tubolar absorbing structure in ber reinforced composite is modelled using 1634 four-node shell elements with BelytschkoLinTsai formulation. The mesh is not uniform in the axial direction. The dimensions of the elements change from 1.12 2.44 to

2.24 2.44 mm. Two details of the numerical model are reported in Fig. 11. The material is modelled with the information obtained from the simulation of the tubes, while the impact mass is modelled as a rigid body with solid elements. The experimental and numerical curves representing the variation of the deceleration with the time are

Fig. 13. Sequence of the deformation and Von Mises stresses of the steering column.

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reported in Fig. 12, where both the deceleration and the time are normalised to the maximum deceleration and to the maximum time, respectively. The experimental deceleration presents a series of consecutive peaks due to the contact and following detachment of the impact mass from the steering wheel. They are not due to the rebounds of the mass with velocity inversion but are due to the acceleration of all the steering structure because of the impact and the following slowing down due to the reaction of the ground and the progressive crushing of the absorbing composite structure. The nite element model reproduces this series of peaks, but is not able to simulate correctly the rst phase of the impact. Consequently the maximum deceleration is about 50% higher than the measured one. Instead the dierences between the numerical values of the average deceleration, of the residual height and of the absorbed specic energy and the experimental data are equal to 17%, 12% and 11%, respectively. Fig. 13 reports a sequence of the energy absorbing structure deformation. The nite element model is able to reproduce the progressive crushing of the brittle composite structure. Stress analysis shows that the higher value, near the strength limit of the material, are in the absorbing structure, while the rest of the column can support the impact without internal damages.

for the peak load and around 10% for the specic absorbed energy. The nite element model is not able to simulate correctly only the rst phase of the steering column impact; consequently the maximum deceleration is about 50% higher than the measured one. In any case, the crash simulation correctly predicts the deformation and failure phenomena of all the dierent structures. The work shows the excellent capacity of energy absorbing for the composite structures used in Formula One racing cars. Besides it shows that a high level of agreement can be now obtained between simulation and tests, so it helps to build condence in the future use of non-linear dynamic nite element codes for the design of composite structures subjected to crash loading that are very important also in the automotive as well as in the aircraft industries.

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6. Conclusion The present paper describes an experimental and numerical investigation of energy absorbers for Formula One side impact and for Formula One steering column impact. The crash tests are performed measuring the loadshortening diagram and the energy absorbed by the structure. A nite element model is then developed using the non-linear, explicit dynamic code LS-DYNA. To set up the numerical model, tubes crushing testing are conducted to determine the material failure modes and to characterise them with LS-DYNA. The results presented in this study show that the composite tubes, the energy absorbers for Formula One side impact and steering column impact possess an excellent capacity of energy absorption. In particular the composite tubes in fabric lamina and in unidirectional lamina have average values of specic absorbed energy equal to 56 and 52 kJ/kg, respectively. They show also a load-shortening curve that approaches the ideal one, that would have a rectangular shape, with crash load eciency around 1.1. The nite element simulations accurately predict the overall shape, magnitude and pulse duration in all the types of impact. Comparing the numerical data to the experimental results, the dierences are around 20%

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