Materials used in Automotive Industry.

                      Automobiles require numerous uncooked substances for their manufacturing. This includes aluminum, glass, and iron ore to make metal, in addition to petroleum products used to make plastics, rubber, and special fibers. After raw materials are extracted from the earth, they're transformed into merchandise that automakers or automobile parts businesses use in a meeting manner. the automobile enterprise is one of the largest consumers of the world's raw substances.

A huge variety of component elements go into assembling an automobile. beyond the primary constructing blocks (engines and transmissions) there are the indoor elements such as tool panels, seats, and HVAC structures alongside the vital wiring to tie the whole lot collectively. over time, the materials used to make those components have been modified truly, however the bulk of what is going right into a car stays in large part identical.

                   Material Selection in the automotive industry

                The significance of substance choice in the product improvement procedure has been nicely diagnosed over decades. growing a scientific approach for choosing a pleasant material is not a clean mission due to the fact the great fabric is determined by using numerous factors that have an effect on the chosen method. There are two fundamental motives why materials selection is needed: firstly, to design an existing product for higher performance, lower cost, growing reliability, and reduced weight, and secondly, to choose a fabric for a new product. materials selection is a major product layout consideration because a product’s ordinary overall performance is particularly affected and decided by way of the substances selection procedure.

                

                            Tensile strength vs. density for automotive materials                                 

                To expand new car substances, additives, and systems inside the only way, the absolute car delivery chain wishes to work collectively. The research on composite substances bolstered plastics and polymers has given you stepped forward fabric features that make them suitable to be used indoors, outdoors, and underneath bonnet additives of motors. The automotive composite substances are utilized in diverse automotive additives which include bumpers, seating, dashboards, and internal and outside trims. The careful choice of these automobile substances allows designers to improve sturdiness meet load-bearing necessities and attain a discount on automobile weight.

There are four basic steps to be followed while selecting materials for specific purposes/ requirements.

1) Translation: express design requirements as constraints and objectives

2) Screening: eliminate materials that cannot do the job

3) Ranking: find materials that best do the job

4) Supporting Info: handbooks, expert systems, web

         Requirement of the Materials in the Automotive Sector

                The substances used within the automobile industry need to satisfy numerous criteria before being approved. a number of the standards are the effects of regulation and legislation with the environmental and safety concerns and a few are the requirements of the clients. On many occasions, various factors are conflicting and therefore a successful layout might handiest be possible thru an optimized and balanced answer. The automotive industry is increasingly counting on a systematic approach to substance selection. the choice of substances for a car is the primary and maximum critical aspect of car layout. 

• lightweight, this criterion is the maximum crucial one for an automotive agency, in the context of the high emphasis on greenhouse gasoline reductions, a discount of emissions, and enhancing fuel efficiency.
• Economic effectiveness, having because one of the most critical client-pushed elements inside the automotive enterprise is the fee, which determines whether or not any new material has a possibility to be selected for an automobile component.
• Safety, which criterion have in view the potential to absorb impact strength through controlled failure modes and mechanisms and be survivable for the passengers.
• Recyclability in their products and existence cycle considerations, having in view that the maximum important issues in car industries are the safety of resources and the recycling opportunities, such as strategies for studies and improvement.

Composites and plastics

                Composite materials may someday have big advantages over steel in automobile manufacturing. Composites are being considered to make lighter, safer, and more fuel-efficient vehicles. A composite is composed of a high-performance fiber (such as carbon or glass) in a matrix material (epoxy polymer) that when combined provides enhanced properties compared with the individual materials by themselves. Carbon-fiber composites weigh about one-fifth as much as steel but are as good or better in terms of stiffness and strength.

                               Characteristics of composites

ü They are rigid with high strength to weight ratio

ü Good electrical resistance

ü Resistance to chemicals and weather is high

ü They have good stiffness (related to automobile skin to limit buckling)

ü Good corrosion resistance.

    

                Development of new Automotive                                 Materials and Components 
                

                The producers in the automotive industry are expressing more and more interest in the industrial applications of light, strong, and thus energy-efficient and cleaner solutions, such as composites. This requires innovations in materials, design, production, processing, process automation, and, above all, cost-effectiveness. The traditional production processes for cars are still focused mainly on the processing of metal chassis and other components. Although plastics are extensively used, the deployment of fiber-reinforced composites for high volumes of cars is still in the pioneering phase.

 

                    

                Current Materials used in Automotive Industry

                Advanced iron and steel technologies have seen considerable development over the past decade and are frequently included in new designs and redesigns by all automakers. The steel industry and component suppliers are investing heavily in innovation. Mass reduction through the advanced use of iron and steel is significant (ferrous materials) because they are the dominant material. Iron and steel form the critical elements of structure for the vast majority of vehicles and are low-cost materials with an extensive experience base and familiarity with the industry.
                The use of high-strength steels (HSS), many versions of which are referred to as high-strength, low-alloy (HSLA) steels in the past decades increases dramatically in the automotive sector. One of the applications of a high-strength, low-alloy (HSLA) steels is in Ultra-light Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) which demonstrated a 19% mass reduction in a body structure that had superior strength and structural performance (including crashworthiness) along with a reduced parts count and net manufacturing cost savings compared to a conventional steel body.

            Aluminum alloys for body-in-white applications

                Up to now the growth of aluminum in the automotive industry has been in the use of castings for engine, transmission, and wheel applications, and in heat exchangers. The cost of aluminum and price stability remains its biggest impediment (challenge) for its use in large-scale sheet applications. The aluminum industry has targeted the automotive industry for future growth and has devoted significant resources to support this effort. The body-in-white (BIW) offers the greatest scope for weight reduction by using a large amount of aluminum. Recent developments have shown that up to 50% weight saving for the BIW can be achieved by the substitution of steel for aluminum.

CONCLUSION

                The reason why the material section is needed is to design an existing product for better performance, lower cost, increased reliability, and reduced weight and to select a material for a new product. Various materials are used in the auto industry like steel, aluminum, magnesium, copper, plastics, and carbon fiber. The main factors for selecting the material, especially for the automobile body, are numerous and include thermal, chemical, or mechanical resistance, easy manufacturing, durability, and many other mechanical properties including cost and availability course.