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Steel Treatment Paves the Way For Radically Lighter, Stronger, Cheaper Cars (gizmag.com)
Zothecula writes: Radically cheaper, quicker and less energy-intensive to produce than regular steel, Flash Bainite is stronger than titanium by weight, and ductile enough to be pressed into shape while cold without thinning or cracking. It's now being tested by three of the world's five largest car manufacturers, who are finding they can produce thinner structural car components that are between 30-50 percent lighter and cheaper than the steel they've been using, while maintaining the same performance is crash tests. Grain of salt: the positive claims here are mostly coming from the company responsible for the process.
When new, this may perform great. But I guess rust will eat it like any other steel plate. And then it becomes quite important what thickness you started with.
Vajk
While light is wonderful for fuel efficiency, I'm finding that with each new generation of car I drive, strong lateral gusts of wind tend to pose more of a problem while driving. This is purely conjecture of course, but I just don't remember having these troubles in the past, where it's harder to immediately compensate for a sudden strong gust of wind that can literally alter your cars course in an instant.
Probably. But the US ARMAMENT RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ENGINEERING CENTER did an evaluation of the process and gave it positive -- but not perfect -- marks in 2011.
http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc...
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
If it isn't corrosion resistant and brings a cars life expectancy down, it will be a big issue in the car industry. But look to bikes and industrial assembly lines for positive impact.
I did some graduate work with this company (I'm a Welding Engineer) and it is indeed interesting, but I realllllly wish they would stop calling it Flash Bainite. There is 0% bainite structure in the material, it can only form with slower heating/cooling rates. Call it "flashite" or something else. The problem with the material is as soon as you heat the material back up you lose all of the bonus properties. Right now all of the panels/pieces that automotive would look to replace with this have lots of spot/mig welds on them, so those areas would be much weaker after the fastening work was done.
Before the days of unibody construction, usually the lifespan of a car was dictated by how long it took for the frame to rot, up here in New England anyway. I had a series of Subarus through the 1980s and 1990s that had perfectly running powertrains, but I had to retire them when the frames rotted away. If I got 150k miles out of them I was lucky.
Now I've had a few cars (an Impreza and a Honda Civic) with unibody construction, and now they seem to be limited by powertrain. The Impreza made it to 250k miles before the rings went, followed by the transmission. The Civic is still rolling nicely and passing emissions inspections at 300k miles, though I did have to replace the head gasket last summer.
I suspect the manufacturers are realizing that quality cars == low turnover == infrequent return customers. They'd love to make the automotive equivalent of a "One Hoss-Shay" that self-destructs after 100k miles as you drive past the dealership.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
...might turn an advanced material vehicle into a Coors can on wheels. Some high strength steels are notoriously susceptible to corrosion, welding and/or post-impact problems.
Unwelded, single piece objects with any necessary protective coatings, or in single use applications, are rapid to develop. We can be excited and apprehensive about these type of advances.
Right. Because all the manufacturers are colluding for higher prices, and won't try to compete with each other on improved price. All it takes is one of the big manufacturers to see an edge, and prices will drop. You won't see it from the #1 brand, most likely, but the #2 or #3 brand will see it as an opportunity to improve marketshare, and then the rest will have to keep up.
If we could genetically modify cows to fart helium 3 instead of methane, we could use their gas to power fusion reactors.
You are welcome on my lawn.
While 30mpg isn't impressive, you shouldn't do the fallacy of comparing euro mileage figures with US mileage figures. Here's the three common errors:
1) (UK only): Imperial gallons are larger than US gallons.
2) (All europe): The NEDC is a more lax driving cycle than the EPA cycles and generally yields figures that are about 15% better.
3) (Diesels only): Europe uses diesels far more than the US. While diesel engines are indeed higher efficiency than gasoline engines, it's not as much as a direct MPG comparison would suggest - diesel is also a denser fuel than gasoline, aka you burn more mass of fuel per gallon that you burn. While that's irrelevant in terms of the price one pays at the pump, if what one cares about is CO2 emissions or the consequences of oil production, then it is relevant.
But back to the original case... no, 30mpg is not at all impressive this day in age.... even US 30mpg gasoline.
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
cow poster :
http://www.healthstones.com/fa...
aaaaaaa
Eating meat is about the most destructive thing we do to the environment by far
I hadn't heard this one before. I guess we all had better stick to alfalfa sprouts and organic broccoli.
Tell me, in that perfect green world, is fish permissible?
Or maybe the best thing would be for everyone to just die off and restore the balance?
If a basic trait that humans have evolved to have is destructive to the environment, then the problem doesn't lie with eating meat.
Too many people is the problem. We are no more evil for eating meat than any other predator.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
What I think of when I see these new thinner steel variants is that they must be a lot more sensitive to rust.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Fish is never an alternative to a good beef.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Metal used for car's body costs about 1500$ per small car (e.g. Fiesta).
They are already quite good, lasting well over 10 years without any corrosion whatsoever. (zin coating etc)
Replacing it with stainless steel would increase costs 5 fold => 7500$ per car body.
Not viable.
And to "increase profit"... Many manufacturers are struggling to barely make it even.
Only luxury cars have good margins.
Thankfully coatings technology is advancing faster than steel technology. Rust isn't nearly the problem in new cars today as it was before every steel component was coated at the factory.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The steel is similar to a maraging steel, but much easier and cheaper to produce. Instead of eliminating carbon and adding other alloying elements to form intermetallics like in maraging steel, they keep the carbon trapped as carbide particles for long enough to complete the heat treatment. Therefore only little alloying required. Nice! As already mentioned, the weakened welds limit the use of this material. Re-doing the heat treatment is not an option because the process relies on ultra-fast heating and cooling. Perhaps point welding is fast enough to keep sufficient strength?
Coating technology fails around seams and welds, where it is very difficult to apply. Also, coating technology fails around impacts (stone chips or collisions, but also manufacturing where pressing used).
You don't have to look far to see bad cases of rust on modern cars. For example, Mazda 3 are notorious for rusting through.
"Other predators" don't have knowledge, education or communication.
All life is precious, every single bit of living matter in the universe, from Single cell organisms, to plants to animals. Do not be so smug and condescending that you think that because you are not eating things with faces that you are not killing life forms.
It is the ultimate moral bankruptcy of vegans to assume they are somehow practicing moral superiority by saying "I only kill and eat plants". You are every bit the killer that those you detest are. You are a killer. Things die in order for you to live.
And it will remain that way until we become chemoautotrophs. I mean, you could go on a breatharian diet, but that tends to remove you from the gene pool.
You even take the completely ridiculous assertion that other animals do not have knowledge , education, or communication - so it is okay for them. Is it? Why cannot those of the moral high ground make certain that frank carnivores stop thier parctices, that animal they kill is just as dead as if a human killed it. Take a frank carnivore, and in making them an intelligent vegan, oinly feed them those foods oyu think are acceptable to kill. See how that works out for them. They will die, no matter how you rationalize it, they are designed to eat meat. It does not make them evil, and if you try to force them to eat only veggies, you will have killed them despite your assumed moral high ground. And humans are omnivores, no matter what you think. There is no logical way out for you.
Since all life is precious, and since all creatures except chemoautotrophs can only survive by killing other life forms, We simply must accept that it is how we survive. So go forth and kill something to eat today, and be grateful for it, as it allows you to survive..
Or eat a rock, whichever you wish.
Ex short term vegan here. Impossible for my metabolism to handle, and the other vegans were impossible to be around. So now I eat as humans were designed to eat. My digestive tract works correctly, and I go to no strange and unnatural lengths for my nutrition.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Superior to what? Rat meat?
Fish is never an alternative to a good beef.
... Except on Friday!
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