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Did you make it? Besides steel, these materials can also be used for automobile body

For the car body, our direct feeling is “iron wrapped meat”. Therefore, we take it for granted that the car shell is made of steel. In fact, with the continuous development of materials and manufacturing technology, more and more new materials have also joined the base camp of automobile manufacturing. Today, let’s see what materials can be used for automobile body except steel?

1. Already popular – all aluminum alloy

Audi’s ASF (Audi space frame) is one of the pioneers of all aluminum alloy body. It has a history of 23 years, and a total of 9 Audi have been marked with ASF. Now the tenth part belongs to the new Audi A8 that will be launched soon.

In fact, compared with steel, aluminum alloy has several characteristics:

Aluminum alloy is really light. The density of aluminum is 2.7g per cubic centimeter, while the density of iron is 7.85g per cubic centimeter

However, when the aluminum alloy reaches the same stiffness, it should be thicker and larger. For example, for the engine, the cast iron cylinder block can be thinner and smaller, and the full aluminum will be large. Therefore, except for high-end and large-size models, most of them are still cast iron cylinder block and aluminum alloy cylinder head.

Not to mention that industrial steel and cast iron contain less carbon than pure iron. Aluminum alloys may contain copper, magnesium, zinc and manganese according to different uses and formulas, or directly contain iron and nickel, which is heavier than pure aluminum.

Therefore, in fact, the aluminum alloy body will not be three times lighter, but will be larger.

Therefore, it can not be said that he completely surpasses steel, which is also the reason why it has not been able to dominate the world.

The figure above shows the all aluminum alloy body of the previous generation A8 (D3) on sale. With the development of science and technology, the high-strength steel capacity is stronger. From the cash sale (D4), Audi’s ASF body is no longer an all aluminum body in the simple sense, but is composed of more kinds of materials.
The next generation A8 model (D5) is more complex and has further increased its weight by 50kg:
It can be seen that the minority of all aluminum alloy makes its development lag behind that of steel, so Audi also keeps pace with the times in its top models and adopts more complex materials to meet higher safety and as low weight as possible.
2. Occasionally heard – carbon fiber;
We can always see the news that the sports car was burned down, for example:
Is this because the sports car is too weak and fragile? Of course not. It’s just that they use a lot of carbon fiber composites.
This carbon fiber is no stranger to us. Since McLaren introduced it to F1 in 1981, the racing industry is almost monopolized by carbon fiber.
Its advantages are obvious. The sixth carbon is twice as light as aluminum. After being made into fiber, it has strong tensile capacity. After being woven into mesh carbon fiber, it is light, rigid and elastic, high temperature resistant and low coefficient of thermal expansion (high-end carbon fiber can withstand high temperature of 2000 degrees, and low-end carbon fiber can also have five or six Baidu). And carbon fiber technology is still developing rapidly, and even began to threaten the status of ceramics as high-performance engine block materials. Today’s carbon fiber is no longer as disposable as before, and the damage is not serious and can be repaired. Now the most common carbon fiber products at home are tennis rackets with more than 300 yuan, badminton rackets with more than 150 yuan and bicycles with more than 900 yuan.
However, the disadvantages are also obvious. The shear resistance is poor, and the fire resistance of carbon fiber (such as engine, single shell cabin and car body) varies greatly according to different levels.
The single shell cockpit such as McLaren mp4-12c is made of multi-layer carbon fiber composite and has strong stiffness (of course, this part also gives up the cushioning capacity in case of collision), so the shell will be made of carbon fiber materials with lower strength. For example, the Lamborghini will still use metal in the shell. The Lamborghini all carbon fiber model seems to be only Veneno, and even if the V12 engine is added, it only weighs one and a half tons, The weight reduction effect of the car body is amazing. It is limited to three sets. If it enters China for 3.6 million euros, it is expected to cost half a billion yuan
In the refitting session, safety is not paid so much attention. The concept of buffering Shenma is completely replaced by “light”. You can easily obtain carbon fiber rearview mirrors, engine covers, doors, interior trim parts, even wheel hubs, brake discs and transmission shafts.
Carbon fiber is expensive mainly because of its production capacity and production mode: not everyone can produce excellent carbon fiber tow that can be used in automobile and aerospace fields. At present, the global annual production capacity is 330000 tons, more than 30 carbon fiber enterprises in China have only 73000 tons of production capacity, and high-performance ones are only 4000 tons. Most of the world’s production capacity is concentrated in Japan. And the production of carbon fiber into parts requires a lot of labor, resulting in a high cost.
3. Unexpected – plastic
The designer of Lamborghini has a big hole in his head. He actually makes cars with plastic. Sesto Elemento (the sixth element) uses a 5.2L V10 engine and weighs only 999 kg! However, it is a pity that he can’t drive on the road because he hasn’t passed the relevant legal certification yet.
In fact, the official language of others is called “carbon fiber reinforced material”, which may not be clear. If you say “FRP”, you will understand. Yes, the commonly used FRP is “fiber reinforced material FRP”, which is divided into glass fiber reinforced material GFRP, carbon fiber reinforced material CFRP, boron fiber composite, etc.
Like polycarbonate, the big brother in the mobile phone industry, today’s plastics are not synonymous with aging, fragility and weakness. Today’s plastics not only have the incomparable lightness of steel and even carbon fiber, but also can tolerate great elastic deformation. It’s really irresponsible to summarize its collision performance in terms of insecurity.
Of course, this is still too conceptual. There are also mass-produced cars!
The Chevrolet Corvette of the United States, as a representative of American sports cars, has widely used plastic on the car body. Although it can’t be called an all plastic body, don’t be surprised if a car with a plastic shell is on the market in five or ten years!
4. Brain opening – wood
Do you think mankind has entered the era of metal cars since the Ford Model T?
No! No! Until today, wood has not withdrawn from the automotive field, and even high-performance models are adopted!
Wooden super sprinter! Speed 386km / h!
Toyota concept car setsuna, made of solid wood, is a trendy electric car!
Morgan, a century old sports car company from the UK, is still made by hand. Although the body skin is made of metal, there are still wooden parts!
epilogue
What about? Don’t be surprised if one day you find a car made of unexpected materials in the street. Believe me, this is the progress of science and technology!
Ken Luo

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