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New DOE Projects Focus on Lightweight Materials for Vehicles |
Posted on: 8/13/2012 12:00:00 AM... The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced seven new projects on August 13 that support the development of lighter and stronger materials for the next generation of cars and trucks. These projects include the development and validation of modeling tools to deliver higher performing carbon fiber composites and advanced steels, as well as research into new, lightweight, high-strength alloys for energy-efficient vehicles and truck engines.
These projects address materials innovation issues in two specific areas:
Improving Carbon Fiber Composites and Advanced Steel through Computational Design
Three projects validate existing modeling tools to optimize the performance and cost-effectiveness of carbon fiber and other specialized composite materials for vehicle body, chassis, and interior uses:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory—Validation of carbon fiber composite models.
- United States Automotive Materials Partnership—Development of new modeling tools to advance third-generation high-strength steel for lighter passenger vehicles.
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory—Implementation and validation of computational tools for prediction of fiber orientation and fiber length distribution in injection molded long carbon fiber thermoplastic composites for automotive applications.
Advanced Alloy Development for Automotive and Heavy-Duty Engines
Four projects will focus on developing lightweight, high-strength alloys for automotive and heavy duty engine blocks and cylinder heads:
- Caterpillar Inc.—Development of high-strength iron-based alloys to allow for higher cylinder pressures and increased engine efficiency.
- Ford Motor Company—Development of a new class of advanced, cost competitive aluminum casting alloys, using integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) tools.
- General Motors—Demonstration of ICME tools to accelerate the development of a new, high-performance cast alloy for critical structure applications.
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory—Development and implementation of cost-effective and improved cast aluminum alloys that would enable the design of higher efficiency light-duty passenger vehicle engines.
The DOE will provide $8 million this year for these awards, and has requested an additional $13.75 million next year, subject to congressional appropriations, to support the completion of these projects over the next two to four years. These projects support the Materials Genome Initiative, a multi-agency effort to accelerate materials discovery and deployment by encouraging the development of computational tools, software, new methods for material characterization, and the development of open standards and databases that will make the process of discovery and development of advanced materials faster, less expensive, and more predictable.
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