Vehicle Crashworthiness & Body Structures

Vehicle crashworthiness and body structures — crash energy management, materials and sections, load paths, and the structures behind occupant protection.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 3-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Advanced
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

Get notified when this course is scheduled

One email when dates are set. Or skip the wait: run it as a private cohort, on-site at your plant.

Talk to us about a private cohort
  • One email, no sequence
  • Never shared
  • Reply within one business day

Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

Crashworthiness is decided in the body structure, and engineers who understand it design safer vehicles and win disputes. Taught by former OEM body and crash engineers from Land Rover, BMW, Jeep, DaimlerChrysler, and Nissan, this seminar covers crash load paths, energy absorption, FMVSS crash requirements, CAE modeling (LS-DYNA and FEA), and the interaction of plastics and composites in crash. It is the structural complement to ETS's polymer courses and the foundation for hybrid metal-plastic crash work.

Ideal Learner

  • Body structure and BIW engineers
  • Vehicle safety and crash-performance engineers
  • CAE engineers modeling crash (LS-DYNA, FEA)
  • Materials engineers placing plastics/composites in crash paths
  • Product-liability and crash investigators

Learning Objectives

  • Explain crash load paths and energy-management in the body structure
  • Apply FMVSS 208 and related crash requirements to design
  • Model crash behavior with FEA/LS-DYNA and interpret results
  • Place plastics and composites in crash-critical locations correctly
  • Analyze a crash to distinguish design from materials from abuse

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • Impulse and momentum at crash speeds
  • Load paths, deceleration, occupant compartment integrity
  • Energy absorption: crush, buckling, and material behavior
  • BIW architecture for front, side, rear, and rollover
  • Structural members and their crash function
  • High-strength steel, aluminum, and joining
  • Where polymers belong in crash-energy management
  • Composite energy absorption and its pitfalls
  • Metal-plastic hybrid structures
  • FMVSS 208/214/301 and NCAP
  • EU/ECE and GTR test regimes
  • Homologation and self-certification mapping
  • LS-DYNA and explicit FEA fundamentals
  • Mesh, material, and contact modeling for crash
  • Correlation to full-vehicle and sled tests
  • Reconstructing a crash from marks, deformation, and data
  • Separating design/structures from materials from occupant response
  • Presenting the evidence-based finding

More in Track F — Crash, Structures, Reconstruction & Injury

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