• Composites Research
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.15-22
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• 2008

This paper describes the results of structural integrity and crashworthiness of Automatic Guideway Transit(AGT) vehicle made of sandwich composites. The applied sandwich composite of vehicle structure was composed of aluminum honeycomb core and WR580/NF4000 glass fabric/epoxy laminate composite facesheet. Material testing was conducted to determine the input parameters for the composite facesheet model, and the effective equivalent damage model fer the orthotropic honeycomb core material. The finite element analysis using ANSYS v11.0 was dont to evaluate structural integrity of AGT vehicle according to JIS E 7105 and ASCE 21-98. Crashworthiness analysis was carried out using explicit finite element code LS-DYNA3D with the lapse of time. The crash condition was frontal accident with speed of 10km/h at rigid wall. The results showed that the structural integrity and crashworthiness of AGT vehicle were proven under the specified loading and crash conditions. Also, the modified Chang-Chang failure criterion was recommended to evaluate the failure modes of composite structures after crashworthiness event.