Spaceframe Project Leads to 30% Mass Savings with Steel

Mercedes Spaceframe

A partnership project between a steel company and an autobody supplier aimed to design essential parts of a real-world body structure, based on spaceframe technology, by applying new production techniques with innovative steel materials. In this project, the competence of a full service autobody supplier was combined with the knowledge and the experience of a large European steel and technology group. Main goals of the project were a significant mass reduction (30%) of a state-of-the-art serial body structure, while maintaining mechanical properties and achieving improved crash behavior.

The project was split in two parts. In the first part, the virtual development, it was the task to design a spaceframe structure maintaining styling and package requirements and to confirm the manufacturability of the newly developed parts, which were formed by a roll forming and tubular or sheet hydrofoming processes.

The results—more than 30% weight reduction for the analyzed structure, cost neutrality and the same technical characteristics--were so promising that the partners decided to integrate the developed spaceframe in a real vehicle. Six components, two hydroformed and four roll formed parts, were manufactured and integrated into the body structure of a series cabrio/convertible. Crash tests were successfully performed with this prototype vehicle. For more detailed information see http://www.atlas-spaceframe.de/.