Kevin Chacko
PhD Researcher
Faculty:Faculty of Science and Engineering
School:Engineering and the Built Environment
Location: Chelmsford
Research interests
Thesis title:
'An optimised terminology to create a robust Finite Element model of aluminium honeycomb crash barriers and its implementation in crash tests for improved crashworthiness.'
Supervisory Team
Dr Mehrdad Asadi
Dr Jennifer Martay
Research Group
Kevin is a member of our Future Cities Research Network.
Summary of Research
To analyse safety measures of commercial vehicles, physical crash tests are carried out by motoring safety bodies such as EuroNCAP, IIHS and NHTSA. In these tests, automobiles are driven in to crash barriers in which aluminium honeycomb structure is the major constituent.
With the intention to optimise design process and to avoid costs associated with physical tests, automotive manufacturers rely heavily on finite element based crash analysis to predict crash behaviour nowadays. However, the anisotropic behaviour of aluminium honeycomb structure presents a serious challenge in accurate predictions of the crash modes within an acceptable solve time.
The aim of Kevin's research is to develop a new method to create finite element models of crash barriers and predict the crash behaviour more accurately in comparison to current validated finite element models.