Crashworthiness behavior of aluminum profiles with holes considering damage criteria and damage evolution

•The effect of discontinuities in aluminum profiles considering damage evolution is investigated.•The importance of failure models with the evolution to modeling of light structures was corroborated.•Improvements of crashworthiness performance of profiles were obtained by discontinuities.•A rule for the effective sizing of the hole diameter was specified.•A specific automotive application is presented, demonstrating the usefulness of the current study.