IIW White Paper

At the same time as automakers are grappling with these challenges, the competitive landscape in the automotive market has increased significantly. The number of nameplates available for consumers to choose from has gone up significantly over the last decade. This broadened competition has turned it into a buyers’ market, driving growth of incentives to outpace vehicle prices. To keep customers coming into the showroom, automakers must continually refresh their line-ups. The speed and cost of developing new vehicles combined with the ability to change model production to flow with market demand have become critical competitive advantages. These challenges have a direct impact on the automaker’s technical strategies. In discussions with Edison Welding Institute (EWI) members, three common technical areas emerge; powertrains, structures and safety systems. Powertrains The first technical area is the development of next generation powertrains, which have automakers focusing on near term, mid-term and long-term solutions. The near term focus includes the development of more efficient internal combustion engines (ICE). Most of the mid-term effort is on the development of hybrid vehicles. The lynch pin to these vehicles is the development of safe, affordable Lithium-Ion batteries. Long- term, every OEM has its focus on producing fuel cell powertrains. Two critical steps to make fuel cells a sellable reality in the market place are the ability to affordably produce the fuel cells themselves in high volume and the development of safe hydrogen storage systems. From a joining standpoint, these new powertrains require enormous numbers of critical welds. In the batteries, these welds will involve joining dissimilar materials like copper to aluminium. From a welding engineering standpoint, the fuel cell stack is a series of leak tight joints on very thin foils. To be produced affordably, these joints will require ultra high speed welding systems that are better than six sigma. Structures and safety systems Over the last few years the focus of automakers has been on the ability to meet the pending roof crush standards without taking a weight or cost penalty. Through the development of new steel grades, known as advanced high strength steels (AHSS), automakers have, for the most part been able to design vehicles to the new standards without a weight penalty. These new steels offer much hope toward developing lighter, safer vehicles. The challenge welding engineers face with these new steels is that steel makers and designers are implementing new steels at a faster rate than welding engineers can handle. To better handle the onslaught of new materials, FEA based weldability modelling tools are needed. The next hurdle developers are grappling with is how to drive down the weight and cost of the vehicle structures. To achieve this, designers will likely call for new designs involving tubular construction. To make tubular designs work in a vehicle assembly, robust single sided welding technologies must be developed. Perhaps the biggest change that will occur if fuel prices and regulations require automakers build more efficient vehicles is the incorporation of multi-material vehicle designs (MMV). Today’s vehicles are largely steel structures. An MMV would utilise a range of materials from Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) and Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS), to aluminium, magnesium and composites. While a true MMV structure offers the protection of UHSS with the weight savings of aluminium and magnesium, it would also pose numerous manufacturing challenges in terms of corrosion, joining, and design. Automakers are looking for governmental, research and industrial organisations that will partner with them to research, develop and commercialise technologies that address the critical hurdles revolving around energy/emissions, safety and affordability. Collaborations to address these materials joining challenges, are necessary.

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Through Optimum Use and Innovation of Welding and Joining Technologies

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