Since August 2018, the growth rate of traditional fuel car sales has begun to "regress", but new energy vehicles have risen against the trend.
All this has a great relationship with energy conservation and environmental protection. How to further improve the lightweight level of new energy vehicles and maximize the benefits of emission reductions is "imminent."
Generally, vehicle weight reduction needs to be performed under conditions that meet product functional requirements and cost control, and can focus on optimization design, multiple lightweight materials, and advanced molding technologies.
Hongkong Tian, a research fellow at China FAW Group Corporation, pointed out that in addition to nonferrous metals to replace steel, the remaining "spearheads" should be accelerated to focus on key non-metallic materials.
"In the demand for automotive lightweighting, emphasis is placed on key areas of automotive lightweighting, including the promotion and application of lightweight materials such as plastics and non-metal composite materials, and lightweight design of body, chassis, power system, and core components." He said.
From July 4th to 5th, 2019, the "2019 (Fourth) Automotive New Material Industry Development Forum" co-sponsored by XunMaoWaiRing® and Gascar was held in Shanghai. Tian Hongfu was in one of the four major forums. A speech entitled "Application and Development of Non-metallic Materials in New Energy Vehicles" was given at the Automotive Non-metallic Materials Innovation Forum.
Consumption continues to increase and technology continues to evolve
"The cruising range is an important sign of technological advancement in electric vehicles, but if you simply increase the on-board battery, the quality of the equipment will also increase, and the unit power consumption will increase significantly, with the subsequent increase in carbon emissions throughout the life cycle." Tian Hongfu Said that the most effective way is to increase the energy and power density of the power battery, in other words to achieve the weight reduction of the entire vehicle.
In terms of material weight reduction, Tian Hongfu believes that the traditional single steel structure is gradually turning to high-strength steel and aluminum alloy, but in the future, it will be more in the direction of composite materials. "It can not only reduce the quality of parts by about 40%, but also reduce procurement costs by about 40%, so the use in automobiles has increased rapidly in recent years."
Plastics and their composite materials are used instead of expensive metal materials, and are becoming more and more common in the automotive field.
At present, the average amount of plastic used in automobiles in developed countries is more than 300 kg / vehicle, which accounts for 20% of the total mass of the vehicle. It is estimated that by 2020, the average amount of plastic used will reach more than 500 kg / vehicle. For ordinary passenger cars, the weight of non-metallic materials accounts for about 1/3, and some models have a larger proportion.
Behind the expansion of the market, the technology of non-metal materials is also constantly developing.
Tian Hongfu said, "Non-metallic materials and components are generally developing in the direction of high performance, light weight, modularity, electronics, comfort, safety, environmental protection, simplification and recyclability."
Cost is key
With the continuous development of new plastic materials, the application of non-metallic materials in the automotive field is in all directions.
Tian Hongfu listed eight major applications, including "composite conductive plastics" with conductive fillers incorporated into matrix polymers, acrylic resin sheet plastic glass, carbon fiber trim panels, thin-walled plastics, microfoamed plastics, low-density materials, etc. .
"But on the other hand, there are a lot of good lightweight technology applications that are not fast and not popular, at most because of cost. Even the best technology, if the cost is too high, will also affect the entire product."
Tian Hongfu took carbon fiber material as an example for analysis.
He introduced that carbon fiber composite materials can reduce weight by up to 50% -65%, and can also show excellent strength and stiffness during collisions. In addition, they can be made into highly integrated ultra-large body parts, designed for car bodies. And construction. It is generally used to manufacture components such as chassis brackets, suspension systems (leaf springs), brake discs, drive shafts, body frames, floor plates and body covers.
However, the commercialization of carbon fiber in the automotive field has been blocked. One of the key reasons is that the manufacturing cost is too high.
"The development of large tow carbon fiber with higher cost performance, from 12K to 48K or more, is a future development direction."
And other non-metal materials with higher costs will also gain more development as technology advances and the market expands.