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INTERNATIONAL STEEL INDUSTRY ROLLS OUT ADVANCED VEHICLE CONCEPTS TO EUROPEAN CARMAKERS
The international steel industry continues the global roll-out of its ULSAB-AVC Advanced Vehicle Concepts programme with a series of in-depth seminars for carmakers throughout Europe. Following the initial announcement of headline results in Detroit earlier this year and at the Geneva motor show, the latest briefings provide comprehensive information that will allow European vehicle and component manufacturers to evaluate in detail the design concepts behind the steel industry’s ‘technology showcase’ for cars made from advanced steels and the latest component manufacturing processes. Today’s briefing in Coventry by Corus is aimed at vehicle and component manufacturers based in the UK and Netherlands. Eight other European steelmakers – all members of the international consortium funding the US$11m programme – have already made or will be making similar technical presentations in their respective markets. Further presentations will be made at the forthcoming International Body Engineering Conference in Paris on 8-11 July. The ULSAB-AVC concepts demonstrate that the combination of advanced high-strength steels (AHSS), cutting-edge component manufacturing technologies and innovative design can offer carmakers new opportunities in vehicle design and assembly. This opens up opportunities for future vehicle designs that demonstrate improved safety for both occupants and pedestrians, are affordable, fuel-efficient and contribute to a cleaner environment.The steel-intensive designs are based around a family-sized 3-door hatchback (C-class) and larger 4-door sedan (PNGV-class). Summarising the results of the programme, Frank Walker, who chairs the ULSAB-AVC Consortium Technical Committee and is retained by Corus as a programme consultant, said: “The ultra-low emissions, excellent fuel economy and crash performance have all been achieved without making the vehicle smaller and without recourse to expensive lightweight materials and hybrid powertrains. Steel continues to be the material most familiar to automotive engineers. ULSAB-AVC promises affordable cars because it introduces the next generation of steel in conjunction with cost-effective design and the latest manufacturing processes.” Commenting on the design elements of the programme, Professor Jon King, who heads up Corus Automotive Engineering activities, added: “Our goal is to provide carmakers with more options when it comes to designing and building vehicles. Previous ULSAB initiatives have shown that you don’t have to use exotic materials in order to design mass-efficient vehicle structures and components. The ULSAB-AVC programme extends this approach holistically to the entire vehicle and will help carmakers meet their future vehicle safety and fuel economy performance targets, without hitting the motorist’s pocket.” Industry standard calculations show that the ULSAB-AVC vehicle designs can achieve CO2 emissions as low as 86g/km in a family-sized hatchback (C-class) and fuel consumption of 3.2l/100km (88 UK mpg). This is due in part to an optimised, mass-efficient steel structure, which also contributes towards the development of a safer car with the potential to achieve the maximum 5-Star NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) crash rating, the highest possible in Europe and the United States. Advanced high-strength steels have significantly improved formability characteristics as well as mechanical properties that make them twice as strong as conventional steels. This means that vehicles designed using these steels can benefit from significantly improved crashworthiness. More than 80 per cent of the steels used in the ULSAB-AVC body structure designs comprise AHSS, which is about 10 times more than in current vehicles. The ULSAB-AVC concepts also employ steel processing technologies, such as tailor welded blanks and tube hydroforming, which will further help automotive engineers to optimise their future car designs with fewer components. Using less material helps to eliminate waste in the supply chain, from initial design effort through to final vehicle assembly. More efficient designs will also allow engineers to focus on key issues, such as fuel consumption, crash management and vehicle stability – which all require stronger and stiffer vehicle structures. Tailored blanking, a technology established over the past decade in parallel with the roll-out of previous steel industry initiatives for the body-in-white and closures, accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the ULSAB-AVC body structures. While this is more than three times that found in vehicles currently, there is a continued strong uptake of this process by leading carmakers and sheet steel component manufacturers. The steel industry anticipates that the new hydroforming process, which comprises more than 20 per cent of the ULSAB-AVC concepts, and the new tailored tube processes that account for around 6 per cent, will be similarly well received and widely adopted by carmakers. Attending the Corus presentation was Robert Koehr, ULSAB-AVC project manager from Porsche Engineering Group (PEG), the Stuttgart sportscar manufacturer’s customer project engineering company, based in Germany. PEG was appointed by the consortium to design the concept vehicles, and all parties worked closely to develop the most efficient designs using the latest component processing technologies as well as new and advanced high-strength steels. “The ULSAB-AVC concept designs have been well received by carmakers in North America and we anticipate a similar favourable reaction from European vehicle and component manufacturers,” said Koehr. “The results show that in addition to the significant improvements offered by the latest steels, this long-established and widely accepted material also remains the most cost-effective. The motorist gets an affordable car, with excellent safety and environmental performance built in.” Simultaneous engineering techniques and close collaboration between steel industry experts, Porsche Engineering Group and other automotive industry experts including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were at the heart of making the ULSAB-AVC concepts a success. “ULSAB-AVC demonstrates that introducing steel expertise at the initial design stage can deliver real benefits for the carmaker and motorist,” said Kevin Draper, applications development manager, Corus. “We want to be able to offer the appropriate support to satisfy the engineering performance and manufacturability requirements of future car models. Many options are now available to allow carmakers to develop more efficient steel-intensive designs, which in turn means better cars.”
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