One of the most important requirements of the Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) race car design competition is that the car structure must guarantee a high protection level in case of frontal impacts, by preventing intrusions into the driver foot zone or dangerous deceleration levels. These functions are mainly performed by the impact attenuators, which have to guarantee a high specific energy absorption capacity (SEA) and in order to preserve vehicle performances, have to be as light weighted as possible. The aim of this study is the design of an impact attenuator, to be mounted on a Formula SAE car, which main purpose is to obtain the optimal crash energy management, maximizing the absorbed energy and optimizing the geometry. The outcome of the study highlights that the absorber structure made up of honeycomb sandwich panels (primary energy absorbers), realized by means of different aluminium alloys employing an innovative design considering particular geometrical cavities within the structure, could lead to reduce the overall weight and to achieve a more progressive deformation during the impact.

Formula SAE（汽车工程师学会）赛车设计竞赛的最重要要求之一是，在发生正面碰撞时，赛车结构必须通过防止闯入驾驶员脚部区域或危险的减速等级来确保高防护等级。这些功能主要由冲击衰减器执行，它们必须保证高的比能量吸收能力（SEA），并且为了保持车辆性能，必须尽可能轻量化。这项研究的目的是设计一种冲击衰减器，该衰减器将安装在Formula SAE赛车上，其主要目的是获得最佳的碰撞能量管理，最大程度地吸收能量并优化几何形状。