Crashworthiness design is an evolving discipline that combines vehicle crash simulations and design methodologies. The goal is to increase passenger safety subject to manufacturing cost constraints. The crashworthiness design process requires the modeling of the complex interactions involved in a crash event. Current approaches utilize a parameterized optimization approach that requires response surface approximations of the design space. This is due to the expensive nature of numerical crash simulations and the high nonlinearity and noisiness in the design space. These methodologies usually require a signiflcant design efiort to determine an initial design. In this research, an approach to crashworthiness design that combines topology optimization and the response surface methodology is developed. The methodology makes use of topology optimization for compliant mechanism design to generate a candidate design.