Potentials and Challenges for Magnesium applications in crash-related passenger vehicle structures

Abstract

As the lightest structural metal, magnesium alloys have been attractive to reduce vehicle weight and emissions by lightweight design in the automotive industry. Up to now, Mg structural casting, such as transmission cases, instrument panels and door inners plays an important role in the lightweight process. Now more and more integrated Mg castings with large size and complex geometry are in the focus of research and development activities, to meet the increasing lightweight requirement. Together with the company FAW, DLR has developed a new vehicle door concept which shows significant lightweight potential compared to a steel reference in a casting design. Crashworthiness is not a physical property itself, but correlates with the material’s ductility and structural design. Magnesium is known to be a material with lower failure strain than other metallic structural materials. Therefore the use of magnesium in crash-related areas is more challenging compared to steel and aluminum.