To perform fast collision detection on the Finite Element Model (FEM) of deformable components in engineering design, an algorithm of collision detection based on the Axis-Aligned Bounding Box (AABB) tree is developed. For the FEMs to be checked, the facial surfaces are triangulated at first. AABBs are then generated for the triangles, and optimized AABB trees are built to divide the space. The AABBs and AABB tree are used to exclude disjoint graphics, and the Devillers & Guigue algorithm are applied to perform fast triangle intersection test. Parallel computing is also applied to accelerate the calculation. This proposed algorithm is applied for testing models, and the result shows that the efficient collision detection algorithm could give reliable result for complex FEMs.