Event: Manufacturing Process for Lightweight Structures, November 30

Posted: 

November 30, 2012, 9AM-10AM

Ohio State Unviersity
Joining Technology Center (EJTC)
1248 Arthur Adams Dr.
Columbus, OH 43221
Contact: leire.vadillo@tecnalia.com

TECNALIA will present the latest European developments related to several manufacturing processes for lightweight structures, such as:

  • Manufacture of tailored lightweight components by means of hot stamping. Tailoring strategies.
  • Polyamide casting with fiber preforms (in-situ polimerization).
  • Automated manufacture of 3D preforms for composite thermosets

TECNALIA is the fifth applied research center in Europe, with around 1.500 people on staff, 150 Mio USD turnover and more than 4.000 clients. The mission of TECNALIA's Industry & Transport Division is to generate business opportunities for our customers, contributing to their profitability and positioning by developing innovative solutions on the whole value chain of their products, based on scientific and technological excellence.Automotive market nowadays is focused in CO2 emissions reduction and therefore in the development of lightweight structures and components. Conventional vehicles have been manufactured using steel body-in-whites (BIW), moving towards higher strength steels (HSS and AHSS), while trying to overcome their drawbacks of high springback and low deformation degrees. The hot stamping process for hardenable boron steels has been successfully industrialized, substituting conventional steel parts and obtaining an increase of 1100 MPa in strength (from 400 MPa in as-delivered status to 1500 MPa after hot forming process). Former CO2 emissions regulations allowed the use of heavy vehicles. However nowadays the situation has changed and economic issues related to lighter and therefore more expensive materials have to be overcome. In this sense vehicle designers and manufacturers are moving towards the use of materials such as Aluminium and Magnesium. Metals are also being replaced by new engineered materials, such as plastics and composites.

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