Recent Trends and Developments of Crashworthiness Simulation Methodologies and Their Integration into the Industrial Vehicle Design Cycle

Crashworthiness simulation has become an accepted and even indespensable design tool in the development of transport vehicles. Further developments of numerical models, and efforts of integration into the industrial design cycle are still happening at an accelerated pace. Numerical model developments concern basic algorithms, specific user friendly options, new materials and new applications. New applications of crashworthiness codes are in the field of occupant safety and sheet metal stamping. This survey paper discusses such development trends and it illustrates the results on simple benchmarks and on full scale industrial examples.