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CORUS HYFO AND NOVAMERICAN BRING ADVANCED HYDROFORMING TO NORTH AMERICA
The venture, to be known as Nova Hyfo, will combine the benefits of using Corus’s advanced and unique laser welded tubular product, the ‘Hyfo Tubular Blank’ with Novamerican Steel’s high quality tube operations to further extend the potential and existing benefits of hydroforming applications in vehicle design and manufacture. As demonstrated by the international steel industry’s ULSAB-AVC Advanced Vehicle Concepts programme, hydroforming with laser welded tube can be used by automotive engineers as a way to optimise future car designs with fewer components, helping to reduce vehicle weight and therefore improve performance and emissions. More efficient designs will also allow vehicle designers to focus on key issues such as crash management to improve vehicle safety, and using less material to eliminate waste in the supply chain helping to reduce manufacturing costs. Following two years of extensive process development, Corus’s unique Hyfo Tubular Blank has won production contracts in Europe where its benefits over existing tubes for hydroforming are already being recognised by vehicle manufacturers. These benefits include diameter to thickness ratios, helping to further reduce the weight of tubular parts, and improved formability. Tailored Tubular Blanks, made from a combination of steels of different grades and-or thicknesses selected to provide the precise performance properties required at specific points on a vehicle, will help further reduce vehicle weight and will lead to reduction in costs through parts consolidation. In addition, the ability to produce non-cylindrical parts, for example conical Tubular Blanks for specific applications such as door pillars, will further allow vehicle engineers to enhance vehicle performance through optimising design. Commenting on the venture, Kevin Edgar of Corus Hyfo said: “We are delighted to be working with Novamerican Steel to offer the North American automotive market the latest steel processing technologies to help meet vehicle manufacturers’ aims of reducing cost, vehicle weight and emissions.” Rob Taberner, vice president, Novamerican Steel automotive operations added: “The North American market has already started to embrace the benefits of hydroforming and we are confident that together we will be able to demonstrate the extensive advantages of using Nova Hyfo’s advanced Tubular Blanks.” Nova Hyfo will have representatives based in Detroit to service vehicle manufacture design teams as well as Ontario where a number of hydroforming tier one companies have their operations.
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