North American Steel Fabricates the Future With $22 Million UltraLight Auto Body
4 March 1998
North American Steel Fabricates the Future With $22 Million UltraLight Auto Body
DETROIT, March 4 -- The steel industry is about to bring
solid proof to its customers and to the nation that a steel automobile body
can be made lighter and stronger, yet cost less than today's auto bodies.
Steel representatives will begin meeting in the weeks following with
automotive engineers and designers to demonstrate the technology behind the
UltraLight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB).
Automakers will see, feel and hear details about a steel body structure
that is fabricated, tested and proven to be lighter, stiffer, and could be
less expensive to produce than not only the best of today's bodies, but also
the best of what's likely to exist on the near horizon.
Light Weight, High Performance, Low Cost
The ULSAB structure weighs merely 203 kg (447 lbs.), up to 36 percent less
than the nine mid-size sedans benchmarked in the concept phase of the study.
Torsion and bending tests of the structure showed dramatic improvements over
benchmark of 80 percent and 52 percent, respectively, and first body structure
mode indicates a 58 percent improvement. Computer modeling also shows ULSAB
satisfies mandated crash requirements, even at speeds exceeding some of the
requirements.
In addition to reduced weight and superior performance, ULSAB would cost
no more to build than typical auto body structures in its class and can even
yield potential cost savings, according to economic analysis.
Begun in 1994, the ULSAB initiative was funded by a consortium of 35 of
the world's largest steel producers, including 11 from North America. It set
out to show both theoretically and physically that a steel body in a family
sedan could meet or exceed a wide variety of exacting performance and cost
targets while maintaining the highest standards of safety.
Importantly, the resulting ULSAB body structure also shows great promise
for meeting the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) goal for a
fuel-stingy, affordable family sedan for early in the next millennium.
In a companion initiative to ULSAB, North American steel companies last
year revealed their Light Truck Structure (LTS) study, similar to the design
approach used in ULSAB. Aimed at light trucks and sport utility vehicles, LTS
resulted in reduced weight, improved performance and safety and showed
potential manufacturing efficiencies and cost reductions in the bargain.
Steel -- A Material of the Future
"Steel is the dominant material in auto and truck bodies today," said
Robert J. Darnall, 1998 chairman of American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
"And steel will continue to be used in bodies of the future because of its
strength, ease of manufacture, recyclability and relatively low cost."
Darnall also is chairman, president and CEO of Inland Steel Industries.
"With ULSAB, we demonstrate that the steel industry can and will help its
automotive partners meet the fuel economy, safety and environmental challenges
that loom into the next century. We challenge the paradigm that says that a
stiffer, stronger structure must be heavier," Darnall said. "Our objective
now is to help transfer the ULSAB technology to our customers and help them
put it in place on real world cars."
Design, Materials, Manufacturing
The ULSAB designers had some advantage over their counterparts in auto
company design studios.
"We were able to begin with a clean sheet of paper and use a holistic
design approach -- a fresh, optimized look at the entire vehicle," said Darryl
C. Martin, director, Automotive Applications, AISI. "Even so, having to work
with some typical carryover constraints likely would not prevent a designer
from putting to work concepts derived from ULSAB right now, since none of the
technology employed is beyond current capabilities."
About 90 percent of the steel used is high-strength or ultra-high-strength
steel, and about half of the mass is in tailor-welded blanks. Several key
structural components were made with hydroforming processes and two important
non-structural parts comprise very light weight steel sandwich material.
"Some of the grades and thicknesses of steel used in ULSAB are not
commonly used in auto bodies today, but all are available," Martin said. "All
of the ULSAB steels are recyclable. Steel is the most recycled material."
ULSAB was manufactured and assembled using current techniques and
practices including maintaining tolerances and quality standards equivalent
for high volume production. "We used no manual forming because we wanted to
demonstrate clearly that you can make ULSAB right now," Martin said. ULSAB
employs about one-third fewer spot welds and significantly more laser welding
that a conventional body structure.
The ULSAB crash performance -- simulated on a computer much like
automakers worldwide do today -- showed it would pass the NCAP 35 mph frontal
test and a number of other tests whose speeds exceed today's mandated safety
requirements in the U.S. and Europe.
Porsche Engineering Services, a North American Unit of Porsche AG with
facilities in Troy, Mich., and Germany, did engineering work on ULSAB.
Various automotive vendors supplied components for the body structure being
demonstrated to automakers. The Automotive Applications Committee of American
Iron and Steel Institute represents the North American steelmakers involved
with the study.
The Automotive Applications Committee (AAC) is a subcommittee of the
Market Development Committee of AISI and focuses on advancing the use of steel
in the highly competitive automotive market. With offices and staff located
in Detroit, cooperation between the automobile and steel industries has been
significant to its success. This industry cooperation resulted in the
formation of the Auto/Steel Partnership, a consortium of Chrysler, Ford and
General Motors and the member companies of the AAC.
American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) is a non-profit association of
North American companies engaged in the iron and steel industry. The
Institute comprises 48 member companies, including integrated and electric
furnace steelmakers, and 168 associate and affiliate members who are suppliers
to or customers of the steel industry. For more news about steel and its
applications, view American Iron and Steel Institute's web site at
http://www.steel.org.
This release and other steel-related information is available for viewing
and downloading at American Iron and Steel Institute/Automotive Applications
Committee web site at http://www.autosteel-ulsab.org. Saving the releases as
a text-only file is recommended to avoid formatting difficulties.
Automotive Applications Committee member companies:
AK Steel Corporation
Acme Steel Company
Bethlehem Steel Corporation
Dofasco Inc.
Inland Steel Industries
LTV Steel Company
National Steel Corporation
Rouge Steel Company
Stelco Inc.
US Steel Group, a unit of USX Corporation
WCI Steel, Inc.
Weirton Steel Corporation
SOURCE American Iron and Steel Institute