FEA for Crash & Impact

FEA for crash and impact — explicit dynamics, material models for polymers and metals, contact, strain-rate effects, and model validation practice.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 2-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Intermediate
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

Explicit FEA is the tool every crash and impact engineer depends on — and it is easy to misuse. This seminar teaches the discipline of explicit finite-element analysis for crash and impact: solver principles, material and contact modeling, mesh quality, time-step and mass-scaling control, and — critically — validation and correlation. Taught by a crash-simulation specialist, it turns CAE from a black box into a defensible engineering analysis for both design and litigation.

Ideal Learner

  • CAE and simulation engineers running crash/impact models
  • Structural engineers validating designs with explicit FEA
  • Product engineers modeling plastic components under impact
  • Materials engineers providing crash material data
  • Failure investigators reconstructing impact events in FEA

Learning Objectives

  • Set up and run explicit FEA for crash and impact correctly
  • Model materials (including rate-dependent polymers) and contacts with fidelity
  • Control time-step, mass scaling, and energy balance for trustworthy results
  • Validate and correlate the model against test data
  • Present crash/impact FEA results as defensible engineering evidence

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

  • Explicit vs. implicit solvers and when each applies
  • Time-step, stability, and why short impact needs explicit
  • Energy balance as the audit of a solution
  • Rate-dependent and strain-rate behavior of polymers
  • Crushable, viscoelastic, and damage models
  • Obtaining and validating crash material data
  • Node-to-surface and surface-to-surface contact
  • Friction, separation, and penetration control
  • Loading and constraints for impact
  • Mesh size, quality, and hourglass/zero-energy control
  • Mass scaling done correctly vs. fudged
  • Model organizations and runs for parametric studies
  • Sled, component, and full-vehicle correlation
  • Sensitivity and uncertainty in the model
  • Building confidence for design and courtroom
  • Attendees build and run an impact model of a component
  • Evaluate energy, deformation, and failure
  • Present the validated analysis

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

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