International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT) ISSN: 2249 – 8958, Volume-9 Issue-3, February, 2020 632 Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering & Sciences Publication Retrieval Number: C5328029320/2020©BEIESP DOI: 10.35940/ijeat.C5328.029320 Abstract: Side-door impact beam has been introduced to the passenger vehicles to reduce the door intrusion into passenger compartment during side impact collision. This study aims to develop the new bio-inspired design concepts of composites side-door impact beam. The integrated Theory of Inventive Principle – Function Oriented Search (TRIZ-FOS) and Biomimetics method is the idea generation technique applied in this research to develop the design concepts while the analysis of the generated design concepts using impact test simulation in finite element analysis (FEA) is the method to compare their performances. TRIZ (FOS) – Biomimetics method helps to transfer the nature technology into engineering problems and shows that it can generates five design concepts based on three nature technology which is toucan beak, pomelo peel and hedgehog spine in this study. The FEA analysis method then compared their strength, deformation, energy absorption and weight. In a conclusion, the integrated method of TRIZ (FOS) – Biomimetics helps engineers in generating the nature technology ideas to solve engineering problems using a structured method as proposed in this study while the FEA method really helps engineers to obtain the performances data for the design generated before proceed to the next step of product development process. Keywords : Biomimetics, Function Oriented Search (FOS), side-door impact beam, Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). I. INTRODUCTION General Motors have introduced automotive side-door impact beam in late 1960’s to prevent the passenger’s compartment area from intrusion during the side impact collision [1]. The numbers of fatality reduction are not significant until the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) improved the regulation [2]. Started in 1990, NHTSA introduced Moving Deformable Barrier (MDB) for the dynamic test of side impact test procedure to improve the side impact test [3]. Car manufacturers believe that the side-door impact beam can Revised Manuscript Received on February 05, 2020. * Correspondence Author M. A. Shaharuzaman*, Centre for Advanced Research on Energy, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia. S. M. Sapuan, Advanced Engineering Materials and Composites Research Centre, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. M. R. Mansor, Centre for Advanced Research on Energy, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia. M. Y. M. Zuhri, Advanced Engineering Materials and Composites Research Centre, Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. prevent the door intrusion into passenger’s compartment simultaneously can reduce serious injury and fatality [4]. Side-door impact beam gives an opportunity to engineers and researchers to study and design the best side-door impact beam that can improve the safety of the vehicle during side impact collision. There were many studies involving cross section geometry for the side-door impact beam such as by Abdollah and Hassan, studied the different cross section with different material and found that aluminium square beam can replace circular high strength steel from the results of Charpy impact test [5]. In contrary, Nichit and Batu studies the same cross section with the carbon steel AISI 1010 material and found that I-beam and square beam is the best solution to replaced circular beam where I-beam was better compared to square beam by reducing the weight up to 17% and increased the bearing load up to 34% [6]. This was supported by Lashlem et al. where the impact test shows that I-beam was better than circular beam, II-beam and open channel W-beam was better than I-beam [7]. Fig. 1 shows the cross section studied by the researchers to compare the geometries for the side-door impact beam. Circular beam Square beam C-Chanel I-beam II-beam W-beam Fig. 1: Geometry studied for the automotive side-door impact beam There are rules and regulations that need to follow by the manufacturers as the automotive industry progresses and one of them is to reduce the emission to the lowest level as the targeted emission emitted by 2020 for new passenger vehicle is an average of 95 g CO 2 /km [8], [9]. This can be achieved by reducing the vehicle weight as suggested by Ishikawa et al. with the value of 20 g CO 2 /km reduction for each 100 kg vehicle weight reduction [10]. Weight reduction can be achieved by changing the conventional material to lighter Conceptual Design of New Bio-inspired Automotive Side-Door Impact Beam M. A. Shaharuzaman, S. M. Sapuan, M. R. Mansor, M. Y. M. Zuhri