Why Not More Aluminum?

For one thing cost. Aluminum is more expensive than steel. Plus the manufacturing of aluminum structural components cost more than steel.

I'm not sure that your statement that the actual manufacturing costs are higher than steel. There are a very wide variety of aluminum alloys now with a very wide range of properties. But generally speaking it is 'softer' and more mailable than steel and there fore easier to form. There is certainly the welding technology to deal with it effectively including in mass production.

And don't aluminum structures have , what I would call, a shorter life-span, from bending-induced fatigue, compared to steel?

I think Porsche encountered this with the 928.

Pack rat

Aluminum generally has lower tensile strength than steel does, but again like steel the sophistication of alloy compositions of aluminum is quite wide now as it is with steel and likewise gives them all a very wide range of properties.

Just like any other (complex and) highly stressed product it has to be designed and fabricated properly for it's operating conditions and environment.

The rear engined 'sports car' that a north American manufacturer built about half a century ago that was the 'center piece' of US consumer's advocate Ralph Nader's famous 'Unsafe at ANY Speed!' book (ISBN-10: 1561290505 & ISBN-13: 978-1561290505) that brought him wide spread attention was to the best of my knowledge built mostly with steel as virtually all other mass produced vehicles by north American manufacturers were then as they were prior to and after this period as well. In it there is a picture of one of these cars that had gone into the ditch in an accident and literally tore completely in half just behind the front seats!

The couple of very significant devastating disasters of the very massive, complex and highly stressed space shuttles that failed from a VERY small percentage of the number parts in them that caused there destruction. The same thing can happen in a ground vehicle. Ever have your brakes or steering completely fail? If you survived it, how much longer did you drive it in this condition?

Like steel, including Stainless steels (SS) under the 'wrong conditions' Aluminum actually 'rusts' and corrodes VERY quickly from chemical interaction with 'the great consumer: Oxygen' as well as with many other compounds. Like SS, Aluminium gets its significant corrosion resistance from forming a VERY thin layer that forms on the surface that is no where near as reactive as it is otherwise. In aluminum's case it forms aluminum-oxide which is essentially what happens to it when it starts to corrode and 'rust' that IS very tenacious and corrosion resistant. Like SS under certain conditions, once this layer is removed by any means if it does not get the chance to reform this thin protective layer very quickly, both aluminum and SS can and do corrode away very quickly depending on there environment, just as different unprotected steels do under adverse conditions and environments.

There have been numerous cases of integration of aluminium in parts of vehicles in limited production. Likewise there have been numerous studies and R&D done in utilizing aluminum partially or completely, including complete auto frames and chassis as well as the exteriors both by various automobile manufacturers, and/or in conjunction with various aluminum producers and consortiums.

With our very badly poisoned planet now rapidly plunging into the endless Void of the Abyss, there is a long overdue imperative to find less damaging alternatives to the overall devastation of the ecological 'foot print' of transportation. Hence the recent push for electric vehicles. Though in fairness, ALL aspects of the process including the ecological damage of the production of the electricity to operate them as well the manufacturing and recycle of them have to be fully taken into account to make an accurate comparison. With the current state of technology, in some cases over 1/2 a ton or tonne of the dead weight of the batteries that significantly reduces there efficiency, effectiveness and viability. Just like ALL transportation vehicles the need to reduce weight and the returns that can be gained by this are quire significant given the astronomical number of vehicles under almost constant operation.

Power to weight ratios are very significant in transportation vehicles of all types including aeronautical ones. In any form of performance or racing vehicle, weight is trimmed of anywhere and everywhere that it can be as this is the easiest and most effective way to improve performance. This applies to mass market vehicles and transportation as well.

We need to seriously re-examine and re-evaluate our current state of most ground transportation with a mass of 1.2 ~ 2 tons/tonnes being constantly in use to primarily transport a single individual and a couple of bags of groceries with a mass of ~ 200 pounds ~ 100 kilograms around most of the time.

This is completely unsustainable and some stringent compromises need to be made and a new more realistic and sustainable 'balance' be struck VERY rapidly!

Aluminum IS one of many materials that can help to assist and improve this situation quickly.

In case you are wondering I do not, nor have I ever worked for a company that mines for, produces or sells aluminum. However I have had experience in working with it, primarily machining it.

The tragedy of Jaguar is that Ford never understood the Jaguar cache', and, apparently, no matter what they make it out of, Tata appears to be following Ford's lead. Jaguar was originally affordable elegance. To a true aficiado, it didn't matter that Lucas electrics made it impossible to drive a Jaguar in the rain, or if the humidity exceeded 60%. What mattered was the elegance. American designers have always had a rather perverted sense of "luxury", which does not even remotely resemble elegance...And Tata, from what I have seen, is following in Ford's footsteps...

So true, so painfully true.

I've only had three cars that were heavy and luxury sorts. One was 18 years old when I got it at 19 for 150 bucks, the Pontiac Star Chief. The other was a '68 Pontiac Bonneville, I got for 300, and then the Cadillac I got for 1200.

Sure enough it would be fun to make a replica of the Star Chief out of Duraluminum, or really aluminum with more nickel in it, as this alloy gave it some more tensile strength.

It would be interesting to make the engine out of glass and ceramic materials, and the body out of duraluminum just to see, on the IC side of things how competitive the big bulgemobile might be.

Lots of steel around. I forget how much of it comes from scrap as compared to new out of the ground iron mines, but know a great portion is derived from scrap.

I do pretty much figure that if you want something light, and fast, and strong, use whatever the Aviation guys use.

P.S. Of people who participate in this Forum Milo is likely to give the best info about metals.

Charlie, I have to agree with that entirely. Don't in anyway want to belittle the US based designers as a whole. Some were close to the mark. Loewy and Studebaker had the makings. But the unfortunate evolution to BIG seems to me to be the beginnings of the downfall.

Having it that they all (worldwide) started from the same page. Just hope that there are enough expatriate poms at Tata to eventually pic up the baton. Cheers, Stu.

You are all wrong so far.. the simple reality is that steel rusts and therefore cars need to be renewed, in fact they have calculated the arevage thickness of the body to begin rusting after five years thereby letting the rot set in by the time the major parts run out of warranty, as for cost that is not rellevant as the use of the material increases so does the buying power, but if the body does not rust then the car will technically last longer ... hence less new cars ..

You sound somewhat cynical.

Al can't be satisfactorily spot welded, which drastically affects mass production of cars.

Specialist vehicles can afford to use more labor intensive and slower assembly methods.

Another aspect is that Al doesn't have an endurance limit, so it will eventually fail through fatigue. This is a nuisance in heavily loaded areas, but can be overcome by good design.

Probably the main reason is that steel is plentiful, cheap and the industries production methods and equipment are set up to use it efficiently.

If mass production shifted to Al, the retooling costs would be huge.

Al auto body assembly techniques have evolved to where exotic adhesives are now employed to obviate the neccessity to spot weld.

Thoroughly spec'd Al alloys for structures, inc. auto, have long and enduring service life. Alloys which were once the province of aircraft are now entirely appropriate to the motor car.

Bonus is that metal working dies have a greatly increased service life, which significantly impacts the cost of producion. Aluminium is relatively abundant in our society these days and will become more so as the production cost between it and the alternatives narrows. Lowering prime costs, longer life tools, ease of assembly, corrosion resistance, durable alloys, lower unit mass, recyclability, all point to the future of Al in the auto scene.

Stu.

Aluminium found its place in aviation, so did radial engines, and it is time to extend its use in automobiles.

Stu is right about everything, and as he says; "all points to the future of Al in the auto scene." According to some sources, we have aluminium for approx. 180 years, and if we recycle it properly, for much longer. Imagine that create new metal from properly recycled aluminium - it takes only 5% of the energy to get the metal from scratch. This could be an enormous saving of energy, not to be neglected.

AE

The answer to this question is very simple; powerful energy lobbies are not interested in reducing energy consumption - it is that simple! And the governments are complying... except few exceptions. Weight and aerodynamics are the main factors in fuel consumption by vehicles, yet we see cars gaining weight and approaching aerodynamics of shoeboxes...

If the design is properly executed [for aluminium and not mimicking the design for steel], the weight gains could be as high as 50% to 55%. On top of that, aluminium [if properly prepared for recycling] uses only 5% of energy to produce new metal compared to fairly substantial amount of energy needed to produce aluminium from bauxite. Aluminium can absorb more energy [per weight] than steel. But aluminium has the elasticity modulus (E [N/mm^2]) only 1/3 that of steel - hence the need for special design of [anything] cars for aluminium. Replacing steel body panels by aluminium panels makes no much sense, and yields marginal weight gains in view of additional cost.

Make no mistake though... Aluminium companies are convinced that with more stringent pollution regulations, their metal will become the mainstream material in car making, as it has been in trucks, and keep their smelters ready. And I think, they are right.

See the design of car especially for aluminium; www.beaverauto.com

I just read an article about aluminum in the The Economist. January 9th-15th 2010 issue

A summary:

1 tonnes= 1 metric ton=2204.62 lbs.=2204.62 pound(avdp)=1000 kilogam

Price-The 2009 global economy pushed spot prices for the metal down below $1500 a tonnes. Recently has risen above $2,200 (a 14 month high).

Inventory-4-5m tonnes of aluminum stashed in warehouses around the world, far above the typical 1m tonnes. Past futures market activities will cycle much of the metal back into circulation in the coming months.

Production- China has a huge unused production capacity of around 7m tonnes. The power smelters consume in China can account for 40% of costs. They benefit from cheap land, labor and loans, and often from "captive" power plants fueled by abundant local coal. Other smelters are coming on line in the Middle East keen to diversify their oil-based economies. Western aluminum producers are in trouble as more low-cost capacity comes on stream as older electrical contracts run out. Outside China, at any rate, a producer smelts or sinks according to its position on aluminum's cost curve.

Demand-This year China, the world's biggest consumer, will probably get through some 14m tonnes and forecast to more than double to 31.5m tonnes by 2020.Outside of China and a few other developing countries, demand for aluminum is projected to grow only slowly.

Audi has embraced this subject for years. Their safety and endurance is often good engineering. Body and frame components of aluminum alloys etc. Ah, but yes, price is often a consideration for an Audi, and the designs that depend on the utilization of wise use.