Abstract: According to the requirements of GB11557—2011, an energy absorbing and supporting structure for the steering column of a mini electric vehicle is designed, which consists of two thinwalled beam channels with a central V notch, and its ultimate strength in plastic deformation phase can be controlled by V notch parameter c and intersection angle θ. The results of simulation show that the crash force of human body module reduces nonlinearly with the increase of c and θ . The comparison between numerical simulation and impact test when c=24mm indicates that they are almost identical in plastic deformation mode and their crash force curve well agrees with each other, with a deviation of only 6 % for the peak crash force of humanbody module. The strength and impact energyabsorbing capacity of new supporting structure well conform to crashworthiness design requirements in both impact test and real vehicle driving.

Key words: mini electric vehicle, steering column, supporting structure, thin-walled beam channel, numerical simulation, impact test, crash force