Hybrid Metal–Plastic Crashworthiness

Hybrid metal-plastic crashworthiness — joining dissimilar systems, mixed load paths, and the analysis of structures that combine metallic and polymeric energy management.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 2-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

The modern vehicle is neither all-metal nor all-plastic — it is a hybrid energy-management system, and the interface is where crash design succeeds or fails. This unique co-taught seminar pairs an OEM crash-structures expert with ETS's plastics design authority (author of Designing Plastic Parts for Assembly). It covers how metal and plastic/composite members interact in crash, why plastic crash elements and hybrid joints fail, and how to design and validate metal-plastic crash structures. This is ETS's signature two-discipline course.

Ideal Learner

  • Body-structures and crash engineers integrating plastics
  • Plastics design engineers moving into crash-loaded parts
  • Materials and joining engineers for hybrid structures
  • Product-liability engineers investigating hybrid-structure crashes
  • OEM and Tier-1 program engineers on lightweight crash vehicles

Learning Objectives

  • Design plastic and composite crash elements that work with the metal load path
  • Engineer hybrid metal-plastic joints that survive crash loads
  • Predict failure of plastic crash members and their interaction with structure
  • Validate hybrid crashworthiness with test and simulation
  • Investigate hybrid-structure crash failure across both materials

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

  • The complementary roles of metal and plastic in energy management
  • Why the interface is the weak point
  • Load-path integration across materials
  • Designing energy-absorbing plastic members
  • Material, geometry, and crush-mode control
  • Limits: temperature, rate, creep
  • Adhesive, mechanical, and overmolded hybrid joints
  • Load transfer and failure at the metal-plastic interface
  • Designing joints that survive crash
  • Modeling hybrid structures in crash FEA
  • The designer's view: DFM of plastic crash members
  • Materials for energy absorption
  • Hybrid-structure crash programs and their lessons
  • Failure analysis across metal + plastic
  • Recalls and liability in hybrid crash
  • Attendees design a hybrid metal-plastic crash member
  • Address load path, interface, and manufacturability
  • Present the design to both instructors

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

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