1st ICAI 2020

International Conference on Automotive Industry 2020

Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic

and 75% lower than steel (Kramár, 2019). This trend in the application of magnesium alloys is also related to strict emission limits for vehicles. Above all, these are CO 2 limits that are directly dependent on fuel consumption. Weight reduction is thus one of the options for meeting these strict limits (Kulkarni, 2018). It is necessary to put this into the context of currently produced vehicles, where the safety requirements and especially the comfort assistance systems and equipment generally increase the weight of the vehicles. Weight saving on main components such as car body, chassis and drive is one of the few options not to increase total vehicle weight. Especially when the standard equipment level is still higher when looking at the intergenerational development of vehicles, and the same is usually true of the vehicle’s dimensions, where the new generation is usually slightly larger than the previous generation. 2. Magnesium and its alloys Magnesium (Mg) represents one of very light elements (its atomic number is 12, i.e. lighter than e.g. aluminium – see Figure 1). Moreover, it represents the lightest of all engineering metals, having density of only 1740 kg·m -3 (Davies, 2012).

Figure 1: Magnesium – basic chemical characterictis

Source: own elaboration Magnesium and its alloys crystallize in the hexagonal closed-packed lattice (see Figure 2) and this feature dominates the physical metallurgy and deformation behaviour of these materials. Other very important fact is that its atomic diameter (0.320 nm) gives a great possibility for many solute elements – e.g. aluminium or zinc.

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