STEEL – MATERIAL OF CHOICE FOR AUTOMOTIVE LIGHTWEIGHT APPLICATIONS

In recent years, for reasons of improved passenger comfort and safety, the weight of passenger cars has continuously increased, leading to higher fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Since the early 90s competition for safer, lighter, and more fuel economic ground transportation vehicles, triggered by stringent OEMs and governmental demands, led over the years to the market entry of new materials such as new high-strength steels, polymer composites, aluminium alloys, or also magnesium. In this challenging contest of achieving significant emission reductions and fuel economy across all new generation vehicle platforms, the steel industry is today accelerating the implementation of new innovative steels over other emerging materials. The aim of the present contribution is to review the development of novel high strength steels for automotive applications and to highlight their benefits compared to aluminium alloys, as one of their competitor for the automotive lightweight design.