Comparative Analysis of Aluminum and Steel Sheets in Lightweight Car Body Applications

Year 2025, Volume: 9 Issue: Special Issue 1st Future of Vehicles: Innovation, Engineering and Economic Conference, 12 - 21

Imre Czinege

Abstract

The use of lightweight materials in vehicle production is a key trend in the automotive industry, driven by a need for greater efficiency, sustainability and improved performance. Key materials include aluminum, magnesium and titanium alloys, as well as various types of advanced high-strength steel. Fiber-reinforced polymers (such as glass, carbon and aramid) are ideal for reducing weight, particularly in internal structures. This paper analyses the effect of weight reduction on energy consumption using up-to-date weight and energy consumption data for internal combustion engines and battery electric vehicles. To compare AlMg alloys and steels, a sheet-specific version of the Ashby concept was developed. This supplements the Material-Shape-Process characteristics with three additional parameter groups: Design Parameters, Formability Characteristics and Shape Constraints. Some of these material parameters were further analyzed using a banana chart constructed from a database collected in our own laboratory. This chart was then compared with other global and local formability parameters, such as the Forming Limit Diagram (FLD) and Erichsen number. It was concluded that these characteristics only follow the trend defined in the banana diagram to a limited extent, so complex parameter sets according to the extended Ashby concept were needed to characterize the complex forming process. A further comparison was conducted between aluminum and steel sheets using a multi-objective optimization method for strength and stiffness parameters.

Keywords

Ashby model , Banana diagram , Energy consumption , Lightweight materials , Material characterization , Multi-objective optimization , Strength-to-density function

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