Many real-world engineering situations involve severe loads applied over very brief time intervals. While testing is crucial to analyze these types of loading scenarios, it can be expensive and sometimes economically infeasible to conduct physical tests when the cost of each prototype is prohibitively high. Moreover, data from a single physical test can be insufficient and companies cannot afford to conduct several of them for more detailed information.
Crashworthiness focuses on occupant protection to reduce the number of fatal and serious injuries. This research is responsible for developing and upgrading test procedures for evaluating motor vehicle safety. Crashworthiness research encompasses new and improved vehicle design, safety countermeasures and equipment to enhance occupant safety.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been the trend in virtual crash design over the last decade. The predictive capabilities of FEA allow engineers to fully understand a crash event in a virtual environment, thus limiting the number of physical tests that need to be executed and thus saving costs.