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A typical knee bolster EA in today’s car is made of stamped steel or aluminum that
allows for very little flexibility in tuning its performance to the vehicle-specific
parameters such as crash pulse, impact locations and packaging. Often, such an EA
ends up being a multiple piece, stamped and welded assembly that require
considerable engineering resources (i.e.,design, analysis, prototyping and testing)
to meet the crash performance. Also, the tooling for such multiple stampings are
relatively expensive, especially when such cost is to be amortized for a low or
moderate volume program. Due to the fact that such an EA is an assembly, the piece
price for such a unit is not low either.
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