[China Aluminum Network] Due to many problems such as the development of electric vehicles, air pollution, and recycling of materials, aluminum replacement is becoming one of the solutions for automotive lightweighting. Recently, the reporter visited a number of car companies and experts and scholars to fully understand the development direction and trends of automotive aluminum replacement.
The domestic luxury car quietly rises instead of aluminum
On October 21st, the Chery Land Rover Range Rover Aurora went offline in Changshu. This is the Chery Land Rover’s domestic model. An engineer at the Chery Land Rover Welding Workshop told the Modern Express reporter that the domestically produced Range Rover Aurora uses aluminum on the hood.
Not long ago, Chery’s Land Rover executives collectively went to Changshu, a local aluminum product listed company, Chang Alco. This was seen by the outside world as Land Rover is looking for suppliers of aluminum products, and it also opened up the imagination that the Land Rover domestic models will use aluminum bodies. It is also reported that the Jaguar XE models to be put into operation are expected to use all aluminum bodies.
Sun Lianjian, secretary of the board of directors of the company, said that Land Rover and Chang aluminum are negotiating the business of aluminum alloy materials for vehicles. The company has technical reserves in this area. The company has been supplying aluminum alloy materials to Bell and Falleo. They use aluminum alloy materials to make automotive parts and reduce body weight.
Not only was Chery Land Rover, but Audi had started the "high-grade aluminum car" project very early and began to develop an aluminum lightweight body structure that was used on the Audi A8. Due to the high cost of aluminum, the current large proportion of aluminum models are still concentrated in the luxury car sector.
In fact, due to various reasons such as the development of electric vehicles, air pollution, and recycling of materials, replacement of aluminum materials has become one of the trends in the development of lightweight vehicles. How to use aluminum materials to reduce body weight has become the direction pursued by car companies. Take the Land Rover fourth-generation Range Rover aluminum body as an example. The aluminum body is 180kg lighter than a steel structure with the same strength. With interior components and powertrain components, the total vehicle weight loss is 420kg, equivalent to 5 The weight of an adult.
According to Sun Lianjian, secretary of the Board of Directors of Aluminum Corporation of China, the use of aluminum alloy in vehicles will be more widely used due to the weight reduction of automobiles. The future will be an important direction for the development of aluminum products for vehicles. The current proportion of automotive aluminum products is 40%. In the future, it will far exceed this proportion.
Performance also confirms the prosperity of the automotive aluminum industry. According to the report of the first half of 2014 of Aluminum Corporation of China Aluminum, the operating income of aluminum alloy foils for automotive use (the term aluminium alloy thin plate) increased by 39.32% year-on-year, which was much higher than that of other sub-sectors, and higher than that of the company's industrial aluminum overall camp. Received 7.62% growth.
Aluminum electric cars are more promising
In North America, aluminum replacement has taken the lead in the world, and it has begun to spread to high-volume cars. If the Tesla ModelS uses an all-aluminum body design or a game for the rich, at the Detroit auto show earlier this year, Ford released the 2015 F-150 model that blew the clarion call for the all-aluminum material.
The F-150 is the world's first high-volume production vehicle with an all-aluminum body. With an all-aluminum body, the weight of the entire vehicle will be reduced by 317kg, and the fuel economy is expected to increase by 15% to 20%. It is reported that F-150 is Ford's classic pickup, for many years topped the United States top ten best-selling car. The F-150 is priced at about US$30,000 in North America and is a mid-range model. The Ford F-150 adopts an all-aluminum body, marking the beginning of the large-scale use of aluminum alloy materials by traditional automakers, and the all-aluminum body has begun to spread to mid-end vehicles.
At present, it is precisely electric vehicles that are more likely to be popularized. Under the same range mileage, since the weight of the battery carried by the aluminum electric vehicle is smaller than that of the steel electric vehicle, the total aluminum body needs less battery capacity than the steel body. Although the cost of the all-aluminum body is high, due to the saving of battery costs, the all-aluminum electric vehicle has a price advantage.
Technical problems still need to be solved
Although the use of aluminum has become more and more widespread, many car companies have encountered some problems in the exploration of aluminum bodies. Changshu Chery Land Rover's welding shop engineer told reporters that automotive aluminum alloys require higher welding technology, spot welding can easily deform aluminum, and most use rivet welding, which increases costs.
The engineer said that the aluminum body is generally assembled using riveting and gluing. The aluminum alloy material itself is not suitable for the traditional welding industry. Since the aluminum alloy material is relatively sensitive to heat, if the conventional welding process is used to connect the body parts, there is a problem that the material strength is reduced, and the heat is easily deformed due to heat.
In mid-October, the reporter visited FAW-Volkswagen Changchun's second sedan factory. At the Measurement Technology Center, an Audi A8 was seen doing body-matching inspection. The body of the Audi A8 used the aluminum lightweight body structure very early. Coincidentally, the FAW-Volkswagen field engineer just took the car and explained the matching test. "The car's left front door had an unnoticeable depression on the top of its front door. It was discovered when doing the match detection. We guessed that it might be aluminum shaping. "It's a little worse than steel."
expert's point
Full replacement of aluminum alloy is system engineering
Tao Jie, director of the Advanced Materials and Forming Technology Research Institute of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the distinguished professor of the Ford Motor Company of the United States, believes that if the aluminum alloy is fully replaced, higher requirements are placed on the structural design of vehicle parts and the overall safety design of the vehicle. At the same time, the original welding line of the manufacturer must be completely transformed. These problems are all problems of system engineering. The extensive use of aluminum alloys may be more suitable for high-end models of new production lines.
Professor Tao believes that aluminum alloy is only one of the ways to reduce the weight of automobiles. Lightweighting of automobiles can also be solved in two other ways. One is structural optimization and lightweight design. The other is the application of composite materials, such as fiber-reinforced composite materials.
Encyclopedia
Question one: How much can aluminum cars lose weight?
A: Under normal circumstances, the weight of vehicles can be reduced by 10%, fuel can be saved by 8%, and each kilogram of aluminum used in transportation can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20kg. The density of aluminum is about 1/3 of that of steel. If aluminum is used instead of steel to make cars, it can reduce the weight of the vehicle by 30% to 40%. The weight of the manufactured engine can be reduced by 30%. The aluminum radiator is 20% lighter than the same copper product. 40%, aluminum wheels can be reduced by about 30%.
Question 2: Aluminum is lighter. Will it be unsafe?
A: All aluminum bodies absorb more impact force than steel, so they can ensure the safety of occupants in the car. Due to the excellent properties of aluminum, today aluminum alloys have been widely used in various parts of automobiles, such as dashboards and engine mounts, aluminum alloy wheels, suspension system parts, bumper anti-collision beams, cylinders, doors, and heat exchangers.
Question 3: Aluminum replaces steel. Does the cost of buying a car go up?
A: At present, the lighter and more economically viable option is to use aluminum instead of steel because the cost of fuel saved is starting to be economical compared to the increased cost of buying a car.
According to calculations made by the Founder Securities Research Institute, each kg of aluminum used in automobiles can be reduced by 2.2kg. According to the calculation of an ordinary family car, nearly 2 liters of gasoline can be saved each year, and the current price of oil can be recovered in about 1.6 years. Aluminum replaces the added cost of steel.
Question four: aluminum green?
A: Aluminum is a more environmentally friendly green metal with good processability, physical properties, mechanical properties, and corrosion resistance. Due to its excellent overall performance, it is indispensable for aerospace vehicles, small packaging containers and pots and pans.
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