Expanding world economic prosperity, probable peaking of conventional petroleum production capacity in the coming decades, and environmental concerns require efforts to increase the efficiency of petroleum-based fuels in automotive transportation, and to develop alternatives. The United States government has been aggressively pursuing research and development (R&D) on both for over 10 years in conjunction with the auto, truck and energy-supply industries. Lightweighting of vehicles is an effective way of addressing efficiency of use, directly through mass reduction and indirectly by minimizing diesel, hybrid, and fuel-cell powertrains. Major federal R&D in automotive lightweighting is FreedomCAR Automotive Lightweighting Materials (ALM). R&D first focused on the materials and manufacturing issues of aluminum and glass-fiber-reinforced polymer-matrix composites (PMCs) but more recently looked to carbon-fiber-reinforced PMCs, advanced high-strength steels, magnesium, titanium, metal-matrix composites and glass. Manufacturing issues addressed have included metal production, and casting, sheet-metal forming, production of lower cost carbon fiber, fiber-reinforced-PMC component fabrication techniques, joining, nondestructive evaluation, crashworthiness and recycling. There already have been commercial applications of some of the technologies developed, and this effort has provided an excellent example of government-industry cooperation.

SOURCE: Carpenter, Joseph A., Edward Daniels, Philip Sklad, C. David Warren, and Mark Smith. "FreedomCAR Automotive Lightweighting Materials." TMS Annual Meeting, Light Metals Division Luncheon. Walt Disney World, Orlando. February 28, 2007.