Crashworthiness is the most significant variable during lightweight design of vehicle structures.However,crashworthiness studies using the single substructure-based method are limited due to the negligence of interactions among substructures.Thus,a whole structure-based study was conducted for the lightweight design of a body-side structure.In this study,a full finite element model was firstly created and then modified into a simplified model for structural improvements,where the major load-carrying subassemblies were improved from the perspectives of crashworthiness and manufacturing costs.Finally,sensitivity analyses were conducted to further optimize the strength distribution,based on which an adaptive response surface method was employed for thickness optimization of the structure.It is found that through the structural improvements and optimizations,the weight of the structure was significantly reduced even when its crashworthiness was improved.This indicates that the whole structure-based method is effective for lightweight design of vehicle structures.