This work deals primarily with the identification of solution spaces for vehicle crash design. After a discussion of the state of the art regarding simplified crash models and systems engineering approaches, an overview over the vehicle crash criteria for this work is provided. Then the general concept of solution spaces is illustrated and explained in detail. Also, suitable functional parameters are identified. For the particular problem of vehicle crashworthiness, two approaches are suggested.The indirect approach is based on a stochastic algorithm for iterative identification of a solution space for a given function. A suitable substitute model which maps the functional parameters of the vehicle structure directly to the relevant target values is developed.In the direct approach, the solution space is semi-analytically derived directly from the structure's topology and mass distribution. A mathematical framework is established in which finding the largest solution space becomes a linear, convex optimization problem.