The market for electric vehicles is expanding and the car manufacturer want to store as much energy as possible in the car. However, if the battery cells in the vehicle are damaged there is a risk that the battery could start a fire or explode. To avoid that the battery cells are damaged during a crash scenario, it is important to minimize the intrusion in the body structure. At the same time the car manufacturers do not want to increase the weight or manufacturing cost of the car more than necessary. The purpose of this study is to perform a benchmark study which compares the crashworthiness of different sill concepts used by various automotive companies.

The different sill concepts that are being benchmarked in this thesis are Tesla Model S, BMW I3, Mercedes S-Class and Volkswagen E-golf. To be able to compare the sill structures from these different cars, some modifications must be done to their original geometry. A standardized cross section is created and the material thickness is adjusted until all concepts has the same mass. When the geometries have been designed, a nonlinear finite element calculation is performed to evaluate the crashworthiness of each sill concept. The finite element analysis is based on the standardized load case: side pole impact. The result shows that the concept inspired by Tesla Model S has the best performance when considering intrusion. However, if the concept inspired by Tesla Model S does not get enough support from the floor structure, it will lose its ability to absorb energy after a certain amount of time. And therefore, the BMW I3 concept could be a good alternative to the Model S concept if it is not possible to provide this additional support.