Today, weight reduction is a very important design consideration for carmakers. High strength steel has become a very useful material for lightening the vehicle due to the reduced weight effect and cost. Therefore, high strength steel utilization averages 30-40% of the automobile weight. The class of 340 MPa to 590 MPa is a mainstream of this utilization-based concept on the body panel and performance. In the future, more strengthening is necessary to promote the weight reduction, however, on the other hand, the strengthening of steel deters the formability. Therefore, the application of a new material, which balances the strength and associated formability such as Dual Phase steel or TRIP steel, has recently been promoted. This paper outlines the recent Honda approach to reduce the car weight and its scheme of materials development. So far, Honda has developed a new variation of TRIP steel in cooperation with Japanese steel makers. The application of the developed material has been launched in the Honda 2004 models being manufactured in Japan. Use of the developed material is seen to offer a saving of about 10 kg in the body-in-white weight. Dedicated to extend the application of the developed materials to the manufacturing of automobiles at its overseas locations, Honda has been pursuing plans to develop similar materials in its key manufacturing countries of North America and Europe, jointly with local steel makers, and has prospects for the development of TRIP steel offering similar properties virtually in sight. Efforts to make automobiles lighter are expected to further increase in response to concerns about environmental issues and demands to improve collision safety performance. Weight reduction is an elementary key technology to create automobiles providing excellent driving performance. While the development of design and production technologies that exploit a variety of materials is prerequisite to building lightweight bodies, it is hoped that further leaps in the development of steel materials will provide a major stimulation to the development of car weight reduction technologies.
Weight reduction of automobile by high strength steel
Gewichtsreduktion im Fahrzeugbau durch Einsatz hochfester Stähle
2006
8 Seiten, 9 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 2 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
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