After Gutenberg

“Corvette’s newly unveiled Z06—General Motors’ (GM’s) fastest and most powerful car ever—will sport an all-new, all-aluminum space frame engineered by Dana Corporation. The approximately 90 aluminum extrusions, castings, and stampings that comprise the space frame represent a 30 percent reduction in mass from the original all-steel design of the preceding model, as well as a reduction in the overall number of parts used.”

The Kentucky Kernel (No, not the Bill Moore look-alike, the newspaper) reports that a national philanthropic institution is funding some research in how to make vehicles lighter with aluminum. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which supports research that affects the standard of living and industrial and economic performance, is funding a project to be undertaken by IMVP (International Motor Vehicle Program) at MIT, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, the Aluminum Association in Arlington, Va., and Secat’s UK (University of Kentucky) laboratories in Lexington.

Subodh Das, co-principal investigator of the project and director of both the Center for Aluminum Technology and the Sloan Center for Sustainable Aluminum Industry at UK, said studying aluminum use in vehicles is a very active area of research since “for every 10 percent decrease of vehicle weight there is a 5 percent increase in fuel efficiency”, and using less fuel also would mean fewer emissions.

The Wikipedia article on Aluminium alloy notes that the latest models of the Chevrolet Corvette, among others, “are a good example of redesigning parts to make best use of aluminium‘s advantages.”

The aluminium chassis members and suspension parts of these cars have large overall dimensions for stiffness but are lightened by reducing cross-sectional area and removing unneeded metal; as a result, they are… equally or more durable and stiff as the usual steel parts…

The energy associated with the use of aluminum, even recycled, is high. On the other hand, metal working currently is a mainstay of automobile manufacturing, thus, such materials science and its application to advanced transportation technologies is more congruent than the relatively new technology of thermoplastics from start-up companies like Fiberforge. Yet now major companies — General Electric and General Motors — are espousing the merits of using recyclable plastics to reduce a vehicle’s environmental impact over its entire life cycle.

While much lighter than current vehicles, the Hypercar® vehicle is designed for safety. Thermoplastics are incredibly tough. They can absorb 12 times as much crash energy per pound as steel. The concept car from Hypercar, Inc. shown above includes lightweight, crushable, plastic cones within the panels.

Amory Lovins advocates what would seem more innovative development: the use of lightweight advanced-composite structures to lessen oil consumption. Certainly, aluminum alloy engine parts, wheel rims and frames are innovative, yet aluminum lacks the tensile strength of steel. Composites can be lighter and stronger than either metal.

NCC (National Composites Center) recently received funding from the Automotive Composites Consortium – a division of the USCAR (United States Consortium for Automotive Research) for research into the use of carbon fiber for a heavily stressed support piece. This specific application is between the front and rear doors on a four-door sedan.

Nearly all scaffolding used in construction in places such as Hong Kong, Macau, etc. is bamboo rather than steel.

Lovins and others strongly believe that advanced thermoplastic composite structures, e.g. Rapid Fiber Preforming, Long Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastics, automated Precision Filament Winding and Closed Molding can simplify car manufacturing. It still would mean significant retooling so, as previously noted, there is more interest in such processes in countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and India. There also could be more intrinsic acceptance of fiber composites given the distribution of bamboo in these countries.