Volkswagen Ag

Shape Corporation

Audi Ag

Olaf Insel

Darin Evans

Daniel D Ralston

Vidya Revankar

Amit Ashok Kulkarni

Ngoc-Dang Nguyen

Yassine Ghozzi

Alexander Besch

Oliver Knoke

Eckard Brandes

Jürgen Stein

Sibylle Moser

Frank Strüber

A bumper system includes an injection molded energy absorber of polymeric material having hollow longitudinally-spaced lobes configured to crush and absorb energy during a pedestrian impact, and straps interconnecting adjacent lobes. The lobes are particularly sized and dimensioned, including potentially external ribs and/or apertures in corners, to provide a relatively uniform impact energy absorption during an impact stroke during crush of the shear walls of the lobes, such as within +/&#x2212;30% or more preferably within +/&#x2212;20% of a desired amount regardless of a specific location of impact, along a selected center portion of the energy absorber. A reason for the uniformity is to promote pedestrian safety regardless of the specific location where a pedestrian's leg strikes the energy absorber.

Energy absorber with lobes providing uniform pedestrian impact

Growing community of inventors

Rothemühle, Germany

Olaf Insel