Lightweight High Performance Materials for Car Body Structures

The choice of materials for vehicle components is dependant on a specific supply and demand process, subject to a stringent set of requirements. Among other things, this includes economic effectiveness, safety, recyclability and lightweight performance. Metals such as steel, aluminium and magnesium are mainly used for elements of the body structure and panels. Plastics are applied for exterior attachments to the body. Cars consist mainly of steel and iron, but it is expected that the amount of steel and iron used is reduced due to the impending use of multimaterial constructions. Materials such as steel will be substituted, in particular by aluminium, magnesium and plastics. Alternatives to the steel unibody are multimaterial unibodies and aluminium space frames. Steel and magnesium space frame concepts for volume applications are still under development. More traditional materials are being replaced by high performance carbon fibre composites for their durability and specific strength/ stiffness.