Abstract: The plastic deformation is one of the most important teaching content of mechanics. Teaching is biased toward conceptual and theoretical derivation, and there is a lack of practical engineering background for the teaching process of bending deformation under transversal force and plastic hinge. To enhance student’s interest, the teaching innovation method based on the crashworthiness performance of aircraft and automotive is proposed. Firstly, the crashworthiness problem is given to guarantee the occupant safety during the collision accident of vehicle. Secondly, the mechanical model is built based on reasonable assumptions. Then, the relation between crashworthiness performance with plastic deformation and hinge is established. Finally, the theoretical equation is given to predict the impact load. To help understand the limitation of mechanical model, the accuracy could be improved by error analysis. Through this process, students would realize the importance of curriculum content and have greater interest to learn. Furthermore, to broaden students’ horizons, consolidate theoretical foundation and improve innovation ability, the impact dynamics of spacecraft, the polygon failure behavior of circular tube and academic frontier including lattice structure are introduced.