Automotive material trends steel is still the main light material difficult to reverse?

When the fuel consumption pressure step by step, when the mileage short board to be filled, to ease the weight of these two pressures have gradually become an important label of the new car, and compared to the structural optimization or manufacturing process upgrade, The focus of the parts and components business seems to be more on the development and application of lightweight materials, such as aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, carbon fiber and other composite materials used. And from the current point of view, with the concept of lightweight heating continues, traditional materials will face a wide range of future updates and replacement, and lightweight materials will also set off a new wave of fierce competition.
2025 years ago, automotive materials will continue to steel-based
According to statistics, in recent years the production of an ordinary car, the main material weight ratio is roughly: 65% -70% of steel, non-ferrous metals 10% -15%, about 20% of non-metallic materials. It is undeniable that under the influence of the lightweight trend, a variety of new materials, such as light metal materials, composite materials will be more and more used in modern cars, and it is difficult to squeeze some of the traditional automotive materials accounted for.
Recently held in the second session of the new trend of new materials and materials development forum, FAW Supervisor Tian Hongfu once again shared the "energy and new energy vehicle technology road map" on the development of lightweight materials goals. It mentioned that by 2030, the application of high-strength steel increased significantly, more than 350 kg of aluminum bicycles, bicycles with magnesium alloy to 45kg, carbon fiber usage accounted for 5% of vehicle weight. In addition, although there is no clear engineering plastics and Turbocharger composite materials, but in the technical path that will vigorously promote its application in the car.
Steel has always been the most important vehicle material, even in the lightweight requirements of today, this pattern has not changed. Tian Hongfu is clearly pointed out that in 2025, the proportion of steel in the automotive application will still be more than 50%. Of course, the steel here is more refers to the high-strength steel, which is based on the ordinary steel to further enhance the performance, to achieve weight loss and improve the safety of the impact of the impact, in the car chassis beam reinforcement plate, suspension bracket, engine Stents and other components widely used. Although its cost compared to ordinary steel has increased, but compared to other light materials is still more advantages, the industry for the next five years or even longer development focus.
Lightweight material growth is accelerating, but there are still limitations
Aluminum alloy will be used only after the amount of steel, this material in addition to some structural parts, stamping parts, can also be used for cars, body and so on. Relevant data show that in 2014 China's average daily use of aluminum bicycles about 92kg, Europe and the United States with 100kg of aluminum vehicles. According to the relevant agencies, aluminum in the car in the use of space up to 540kg, can make the car weight loss of 40%. From this, aluminum alloy in the application of the car there is still a lot of space, of course, this also depends on its cost breakthrough.
Magnesium alloy is the most commonly used metal structure of a material, its density is about 2/3 of aluminum, steel 1/4, at the same time with high strength, high elastic modulus, etc., in the automotive applications in the same Rise, currently in the car wheels, intake manifold, clutch, transmission shell, gear box and so on more applications. However, due to cost and related technical reasons, the current consumption of automotive magnesium alloy is not large. Relevant data show that China's automobile average magnesium is about 3kg, North Car Turbo American cars with an average of less than 10 kg of magnesium, but according to the American Automotive Materials Association is expected, with the magnesium alloy technology mature and lightweight demand increased to 2020 Year, the North American production of automotive magnesium alloy will reach 160kg.
As a lightweight material with excellent performance such as lightweight, safety, comfort and reliability, the prospects for carbon fiber materials are highly promising, but there are obviously a number of challenges at the current stage, the most important of which is the high cost. It is understood that the same is 1 kg of material, steel to be 0.8-1 US dollars, aluminum to be 2.4-2.6 dollars, while the carbon fiber is as high as 20-30 dollars, almost 20 times the steel. Relevant data show that the industry has adopted modified asphalt, lignin preparation, polyolefin preparation, high-strength PANCF raw wire, energy-saving processing energy and other technologies to reduce carbon fiber production costs. But from the industry level, to achieve large-scale applications, there is still a long way to go.
Talk about the cost of more security, car weight should not be too hasty
According to last year's "energy-saving and new energy vehicle technology road map" proposed by the development of lightweight technology ideas, mainly in three stages to achieve the car's annual weight loss. The first phase is 2016 years - 2020, the vehicle than the 2015 weight loss of 10%. The second phase is 2021 - 2025, the vehicle than in 2015 to reduce weight 20%. The third stage is 2026 - 2030, to achieve vehicle weight loss than 2015 35%.
Tian Hongfu said that in accordance with the current lightweight development and trends, the above objectives can be said to be based on, can be achieved. Of course, as the Beijing auto industry Zhong Guangliang during the meeting to accept Geshi Automotive reporter said that the realization of these goals is not without pressure. In other words, this is the need to car effort to do business.
Indeed, the industry has been looking forward to the rapid development of lightweight cars, but it does not seem easy. The first is the cost of the problem, most of the light materials are facing this factor constraints. Zhong Guangliang also said that relative to the technical breakthrough, the cost of Coilover Suspension the pressure brought about by the greater pressure. In addition to the cost, there is a problem can not be ignored, that is, car safety, despite a long time to let the industry understand the car weight and car safety is not proportional, but the emergence of new lightweight lightweight materials for testing and other aspects Did put forward new demands.
Yuhai Long, technical manager of Tsinghua University, Suzhou Automotive Research Institute said that now the automotive materials such as high-strength steel, aluminum alloy, magnesium alloy, plastic materials and other materials compared to the traditional body of a significant increase in the application of these different materials in the car we need Material has a good understanding, and ultimately the appropriate materials used in the right place.
He pointed out that these new materials have different mechanical properties, such as under the impact of large deformation under the impact of anisotropy and fracture failure and traditional materials are not the same, there are materials, strength, failure characteristics and other aspects also need to be tested The And only to their characteristics of the study clear, to be able to apply to the material to what parts to do a reference and basis.
However, the good news is that although the lack of lightweight material, "small" breakthrough, but "small" progress, such as Faurecia's seat lightweight program, Pan Asia's insulation materials and Solvay's Technyl high-performance materials Wait. It is undeniable that these small progress is the key to achieving the goal of lightweight car.