Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2010 (2010), Article ID 627501, 18 pages
doi:10.1155/2010/627501
Research Article

Robust Design of S-Shaped Box Beams Subjected to Compressive Load

A. Khakhali,1 A. Darvizeh,1 A. Masoumi,2 N. Nariman-Zadeh,1,3 and A. Shiri1

1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Guilan, P.O. Box 3756, Rasht 3756, Iran
2Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3Intelligent-Based Experimental Mechanics Center of Excellence, School of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Received 15 November 2009; Revised 27 April 2010; Accepted 28 June 2010

Academic Editor: Giuseppe Rega

Copyright © 2010 A. Khakhali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

In order to design the automotive components considering probabilistic uncertainties in the decision variables, it is desired to perform a robust design process. The peak crushing force of the energy absorber components is one of the important objectives of the design of such components. In this paper, at first, the peak crushing force of the S-shaped box beams, as a highly simplified model of front member of a vehicle body, is extracted mathematically. Using such obtained mathematical model and Monte Carlo simulation, genetic algorithm is then used for the robust design of the S-shaped box beams having probabilistic uncertainties in material and geometrical parameters. In this way the variance-per-mean ratio of the peak crushing force (Pmax) is considered as the objective function. It is shown that some interesting relationships as useful robust design principles involved in the performance of the S-shaped box beams can be discovered by the robust design of the obtained mathematical model.