US Government Lightweight Materials ProgramThe US Government is very serious about greatly improving fuel mileage without comprimising safety and bringing new lightweight materials to market in a quick and big way. This is an NMCS/DoD partnership and is a CTMA program. Now that the US government owns a part of the automobile industry...looks like they are quickly having a influence. Note one of the funded projects is
Ultra-Lightweight Sandwidth Composite Constructions for Autobody Applications using Aluminum foam cores. Looks like this direction bodes well for aluminum foam and Cymat from both a Defence and Automobile perspective....
DoD - Dept of Defence
NMCS - National Center for Manufacturing Sciences
CTMA - Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities
https://ctma.ncms.org/Newsletter/connector090223.htm
https://ctma.ncms.org/default.htm
This is an exerpt from the ctma.ncms.org website.
NCMS Starts Lightweight Materials Program
In addition to the CTMA program, NCMS has other programs for the express purpose of developing and implementing new technology. The most recent program is sponsored by the US Department of Energy where the objective is to reduce the costs and time needed to develop new lightweight materials for high volume automotive applications. The driving force is to greatly improve fuel mileage without compromising safety, performance, and comfort. New lightweight materials need to be developed and processed into component parts, which currently takes 10 years and 10's of million of dollars. The program aims to cut the time and cost in half using tools associated with high performance computing.
With the available funding, the following four projects are being developed:
Ultra-Lightweight Sandwich Composite Constructions for Autobody Applications: Explore and investigate ultra lightweight but strong sandwich composites made from aluminum foam cores and carbon fiber based thermoplastic composite facings.
Low Cost Resin System for Lightweight PMC Components: Reduce process cycle time and costs the composite part fabrication that rely on resin infusion (e.g. RTM, SRIM, VARTM). Have the material system well characterized and incorporated into numerical process modeling tools to bind the process window and ensure high production yield. The numerical analyses would be validated with element tests and optimized with statistical variations in material properties and process conditions.
Lightweight Material Usage Optimization for Multi-Mode Safety, NVH, and Durability Performance Using High Performance Computing (HPC): Evaluate a new method of accessing significant amounts of HPC resources while performing many applicable steps of the overall development process in parallel. Team with world class hardware and software vendors to develop and implement a remote HPC model. The project will be a full vehicle, public domain model of a typical four door automobile. This vehicle will be analyzed for both traditional (steel) and hybrid (steel and lightweight CBS®) solutions. Multiple safety modes, along with basic static and dynamic stiffness configurations will be used to create a holistic set of performance targets
Automotive Component Manufacture in Titanium: A group of existing part designs will be considered for replacement in titanium with a major US vehicle manufacturer, and cost justification performed based on expected material and processing cost models. Material selection will be undertaken with a primary titanium supplier, with the focus on low-cost grades that meet functional requirements at lower mass.
Project teams have been formed in each of these areas, but if you are interested in participating on a cost-share basis, or would like more information, contact the NCMS program manager, Steve Hale, steveh@ncms.org, 734-995-2195.