Lightweight Materials for Automotive Applications: A Review

During design of the casting products technology, an important issue is a possibility of prediction of mechanical properties resulting from the course of the casting solidification process. Frequently there is a need for relations describing mechanical properties of silumin alloys as a function of phase refinement in a structure and a porosity fraction, and relations describing phase refinement in the structure and the porosity fraction as a function of solidification conditions. The study was conducted on castings of a 22 mm thick plate, made of EN AC-AlSi7Mg0,3 alloy in moulds: of quartz sand, of quartz sand with chill and in permanent moulds. On the basis of cooling curves, values of cooling rate in various casting parts were calculated. The paper also presents results of examination of distance between arms in dendrites of a solid solution α (DASL), precipitations length of silicon in an eutectic (DlSi) and gas-shrinkage porosity (Por) as a function of cooling rate. Statistical relations of DASL, DlSi, Por as a function of cooling rate and statistical multiparameter dependencies describing mechanical properties (tensile strength, yield strength, elongation) of alloy as a function of DASL, DlSi and Por are also presented in the paper.

/pdf/mechanical-properties-of-al-si-mg-alloy-castings-as-a-1geq5ryf7e.pdf

Mechanical properties of Al-Si-Mg alloy castings as a function of structure refinement and porosity fraction

Wheels are an important component in the vehicle. The strength of the Alloy wheel rim is an important property of the Alloy wheel, which plays an important part in determining the overall performance of the vehicle, the structural integrity of the rim and the life of the Alloy wheel rim. With the advent of new Alloy wheel materials, new options are available to replace the conventional Aluminium Alloy wheels with new ones. The new Alloy wheel rim material and design need to be tested virtually for optimizing the appropriate design and material and the optimised wheel in virtual mode can be tested experimentally for the performance in real-time conditions before they can be used in the vehicles. The work in this project includes doing the impact and modal analysis for different alloy wheel compositions. From the results obtained, the optimum alloy wheel is suggested, which can be considered with further experimental validation.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/263/6/062074/pdf

Impact and modal analysis for different alloy wheel compositions

This work established the suitability of Oxytenanthera abyssinica (OTAB) for the design of below knee prosthesis pylons. This paper performed three types of test (bending, compressive and torsion) to establish the mechanical properties of OTAB. Untreated samples of OTAB were kept in an open space for a month and sliced for the bending and torsion tests. However cylindrical culms were used for the compressive test. The young modulus of elasticity established by this work is in the range of 2.68 GPa to 9.65 GPa. The yield strength obtained ranges from 42 to 45 MPa.The torsional strength of the test specimen was also found to range from 333 MPa to 380 MPa.OTAB, a relatively cheap bamboo mostly grown in developing countries,is found to possess all the mechanical properties required for prosthetic materials and even proves to be better than some of the conventional prosthetic pylon materials.

The suitability of oxytenanthera abyssinica for development of prostheses in developing countries

PEEK is an established material that is used in a variety of applications. PEEK has replaced metals like Aluminum and brass for cost and weight saving reasons as well as “metallic reactions”. It is also the one polymer that can meet the needs of more demanding applications where very high or low temperatures or chemical resistance are key operational parameters PEEK is an ideal replacement for Aluminum alloy as well as other types of metal tubing, and even glass for weight reduction, comparable strength/mass, chemical resistance, hardness, and low extractable. PEEK is particularly useful in the automobile industry for its weight. In an application where 2 grams can make a difference and weight is directly correlated to fuel cost, light weight PEEK is superior material matches aluminum in mechanical properties, and is more resistant to fluids. In this project work the entire wheel design of two wheeler was chosen and analyzed by applying different load and redesign the wheel again to minimize the deformation and material will be changed from aluminum to PEEK(polyether ether ketone )The following materials were chosen:Aluminum Alloy PEEK(Polyether etherketone) PEEK with 30% Glass fiber PEEK-90 HMF 20 PEEK-90 HMF 40 Wheel design of two wheeler is made by using NX 7.5, and Analysis has been done by Ansys 13.0 software to determine the various stresses, strain and fatigue life of the wheel. The software has helped us really to achieve our goal.As the whole analysis is done by the means of software therefore result and observation are trustworthy and meet with our expectation.

Design and Analysis of Two Wheelers Wheel with the Replacement of Alluminium Alloy

Thanks to the potential weight saving, aluminium castings are good candidates for automotive, electronic, aeronautic, sport equipments and other high performance products At present, one of the main limits to a wide use of aluminium alloys for these applications is a lack of complete understanding of their fatigue behaviour and of the relationships to microstructural features, particularly as far as casting alloys are concerned In this paper, the rotating bending fatigue behaviour of a cast Al-10Si-06Cu alloy has been investigated The specimens for both the fatigue tests and the microstructural analyses have been drawn directly from the rims of car wheels The wheel design influences the microstructure of the alloy, conditioning the cooling rate during solidification and, of consequence, may have important effects on the wheel fatigue performances Measurements of the sizes of the microstructural constituents, such as secondary dendrite arm spacing and of porosity, have been also carried out by means of optical microscopy, supported by an image analysis software Rotating bending fatigue tests have been performed on specimens with different types of notches In this way, after the fatigue tests, it was possible to study the effect of the wheel design and so, of stress concentrations, on the fatigue life

/pdf/fatigue-properties-of-a-cast-aluminium-alloy-for-rims-of-car-4b8uvwmtvd.pdf

C. Bosi

Papers

Fatigue properties of a cast aluminium alloy for rims of car wheels