Steel Programmes Provide Valuable Input to Applying Steel for Efficient Vehicles

The world’s industries are under constant pressure to produce consumer products that promote environmental responsibility. One group that has made great strides over the past ten years is the automotive industry. First, the vehicle you drive is one of the most recycled products in the world. Virtually every car taken off the road (nearly 98 out of 100) is recycled primarily for its steel and iron content, which comprises 77 percent of a vehicle’s material. Considering that on a global basis, the world’s citizens buy more than 40 million new passenger vehicles each year, this is a major contribution to a greener planet. Second, automakers and their suppliers are continually looking for avenues to produce automobiles that have less impact on the environment. Each year, hundreds of millions of dollars in research are dedicated to improving the efficiency of the automobile to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.

As a major supplier to the automotive industry, the global steel industry has taken a serious stand in developing steel applications that assist their automaker customers in their drive to produce environmentally responsible vehicles. In fact, the industry formed a number of consortia over the past several years dedicated to this objective. Programs to date include

• UltraLight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB), development of an efficient auto body-in-white
• UltraLight Steel Auto Closures (ULSAC), lightweight doors, hoods and decklids
• UltraLight Steel Auto Suspensions (ULSAS), lightweight suspension systems
• UltraLight Steel Auto Body--Advanced Vehicle Technologies (ULSAB-AVC)

These programs have been reviewed by global automakers, and program concepts continue to find a place in current production vehicles.

ULSAB-AVC's steel intensive concept designs.Source: Porsche Engineering Services, Troy, Mich., USA

ULSAB-AVC (Advanced Vehicle Concepts) confronts the challenge of designing a new generation of vehicles that improve fuel efficiency and environmental friendliness, while maintaining high safety performance and affordability to consumers. ULSAB-AVC strives to help automakers optimize vehicle applications using the steel industry’s most innovative products and manufacturing techniques to meet consumer demand, while reducing the automobile’s environmental impact.

In designing an environmentally responsible vehicle, engineers strive to increase its overall efficiency. The more efficient the vehicle, the less fuel it will need to operate, conserving natural resources. This could include its aerodynamics, the efficiency of its powertrain or the efficiency of its components, like the suspensions or body structure.

The UltraLight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB), released by the global sheet steel industry's ULSAB Consortium in 1998.

ULSAB-AVC considers all of these factors since its primary goal is to design a safe, steel-intensive, affordable vehicle that is highly efficient. One way this is accomplished is the use of high-strength steels for its structural parts. Parts made from high-strength steels are thinner and lighter, yet stronger than conventional steels. ULSAB-AVC combines these steels with the latest advancements in manufacturing technology that enable designers to do things like consolidate three parts into one rugged part. This leads to greater structural efficiency. Steel’s inherent properties lend itself to use with these new technologies like no other material. It is highly formable and stretches to produce some of the complex parts you would see in your vehicle if you took a look at it without its "skin." Steel provides the flexibility engineers need to attain safe and efficient vehicle designs.

The ULSAC door

ULSAB-AVC is also designed using a systems approach. This approach examines vehicle components as integrated subsystems rather than individual parts. For example, ULSAB-AVC’s front end subsystem includes the engine, transmission, suspensions, cooling and front end structure as one large unit. This allows designers to develop individual components for the system that offer the greatest overall efficiency in terms of safety, weight and performance. This approach is the trend in worldwide automotive design, in part because it leads to efficiencies in vehicle design, fuel consumption and cost.

The research gleaned from the ULSAB-AVC Program can be used by automakers to add to their own breadth of automotive knowledge in building vehicles that will ultimately achieve greater fuel efficiency and improved environmental impact during their useful life. Yet, these vehicles can still be highly recycled when that useful life is over.

One of ULSAS's five lightweight suspension designs

The difference between how much of your vehicle winds up as waste and how much is reusable depends on the materials from which it is made.

Most of today’s vehicles are made of steel, which is the most recycled material in the world. What is more, it takes used steel to make new steel. This means that each new steel product is made in part from recycled steel. In other words, the refrigerator you disposed of last year could be a part of the new car you bought this year. Using recycled steel means less mining of natural resources. Recycling a single car conserves more than 2500 pounds (1134 kilos) of virgin iron ore, 1400 pounds (635 kilos) of coal and 120 pounds (54 kilos) of limestone. It also means that there is less need to transport new material to the manufacturing facility, which saves more fuel and environmental impact caused in shipping raw ore.

Further, it takes at least 60 percent less energy to produce steel from scrap than it does from iron ore. It is estimated that in the United States alone, the steel industry saves enough energy to power 18 million households for a year. And because so much of the automobile is made of steel products, that means less of it will end its life in a landfill.

Consequently, this makes developments like this family of steel research important to the future of the environment. Since all of the concepts are steel-intensive, they continues to assist automakers in producing future generations of vehicles that will be highly recyclable. This, coupled with the advantages of being an efficient vehicle, both in fuel usage and structure, makes the UL family of research a great achievement in manufacturing affordable vehicles that reduce the automobile’s environmental influence.