PNNL

Abstract

The current trend in the automotive industry is to develop and apply technology to continually reduce and minimize the energy consumption and environmental impact of future vehicles. As a result, advanced materials and methods of material savings for the purpose of vehicle weight reduction are of interest to all major automotive manufacturers as reflected by the significant focus of the Partnership for New Generation Vehicles (PNGV) on materials issues. Aluminum sheet stampings are being increasingly applied in high volume hang-on applications including hoods, decklids and liftgates with considerable interest in door stampings as well. Automotive engineers have been successful in reducing weight, reducing part count, streamlining the assembly process and reducing costs by taking advantage of singular steel tailored blanks to replace multiple blanks which would have to be separately stamped and assembled. The same opportunities exist for aluminum tailored blanks, with added weight savings. Potential applications of aluminum tailored blanks extend to body-in-white stampings.