The B-pillar of a car body redesigned using stainless steel in its core.

Two of the major concerns of the auto industry today are, how to achieve high environmental standards, and how to improve safety. In order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, and so make them more environmentally sustainable, vehicle weight has to be reduced dramatically. As the weight mostly derives from steel, the dilemma is, how to do that without compromising passenger safety?

A key solution comes from materials: stainless steel shows powerful potential for weight reductions. Realizing this, three of the world’s largest stainless steel producers including Outokumpu and six major auto companies have joined forces, for the first time, to present stainless as a viable alternative for structural components in cars. Using high-strength stainless steel, rather than ordinary steel, car parts can be made considerably thinner and lighter, while actually improving safety. Other benefits of stainless for carmakers include excellent fabricability and unique hardening behavior during cold-forming processes. 

Under the umbrella of the Next Generation Vehicle research project, NGV for short, the research partners are developing new tools that can be used by carmakers to design and fabricate structural parts out of stainless steel. After project commencement in early 2005, the partners first collected data to produce automotive stainless steel design guidelines. Second, they applied those guidelines in actual product design. Using the B-pillar (a key structural member of a car body) from Volvo S40 as a benchmark, they came up with two different designs, some 20 percent lighter than the conventional pillar. When crash-tested, the behavior of stainless steel was discovered to be very good, albeit different from ordinary steel. The work was used to validate adapted forming and crash simulations.

The results gained in the project so far were summarized and publicized at a press conference in Frankfurt on September 12. Virtual design tools will be available for the auto industry by the end of the current year. The goal of the project over the next, and final, 12 months is to fine-tune the tools and establish them as a permanent part of carmakers’ toolkits.

Eric Sörqvist, an Outokumpu expert in stainless steel for automotive applications, summarizes the significance of the NGV project: “This project expands the horizons of stainless steel. We are broadening the possibilities of stainless outside the traditional uses based on corrosion resistance properties, making use only of the material’s mechanical properties.” He continues on the project’s importance for the auto industry: “NGV is poised to open the industry’s eyes to extraordinary new possibilities.”

Research partners:

AUDI AG, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Centro Ricerche Fiat, DaimlerChrysler AG, Outokumpu Oyj, Saab Automobile AB, Thyssen Krupp NIROSTA, Ugine + ALZ, Volvo Cars

For more information, go to www.ngvproject.org or contact:

Eric Sörqvist
Outokumpu Automotive
Trollhättan, Sweden
Tel. +46 520 48 87 22
E-mail: eric.sorqvist(at)outokumpu.com