Crashworthiness and mass-reduction design of vehicles based on enhanced RSM

An enhanced response surface method (RSM) was formulated and evaluated with the optimization to increase vehicle full frontal crashworthiness and mass reduction. The impact finite element model was used for crashworthiness simulation in the nonlinear dynamics code, LS-DYNA. 8 design variables describing the thickness of the key structural components were chosen. 17 sets of sample points were gotten by optimal latin hypercubic method. With the simulation results, the surrogate models of acceleration peak value at B pillar and the components´ mass were built using the enhanced RSM. The crashworthiness and mass-reduction was optimized effectively based on the enhanced RSM.