World-first designs have shown how aluminium components used for various modes of transport can be made almost 50 per cent lighter without compromising their strength.
Coventry-based casting firm Sarginsons Industries has released designs which have taken an existing cast automotive subframe that was optimised for weight in 2022 being reduced from 28kg to 15kg.
The designs have been made from new AI-driven software that is under development to demonstrate that automotive aluminium parts can have their mass reduced without weakening mechanical integrity.
The design shows where excess aluminium has been removed – emphasising the software’s ability to simulate the varying mechanical properties of a part to put the right material in the right place.
Sarginsons is aiming to produce the first physical casting using this technology by the summer.
The designs are the early results of the Performance Integrated Vehicle Optimisation Technology project (PIVOT), which Sarginsons is leading with its partners after receiving a £6m matched grant from the Advanced Propulsion Centre and Innovate UK.
Gavin Shipley, Technical Director at Sarginsons, said: “The designs don’t just look extraordinary, but by being 50 per cent lighter, they are extraordinary.
“We have managed to overcome the complexities of simulating the yield, tensile strength and elongation of cast components. We can now predict, at a point-by-point basis across the entire form of the casting, its mechanical performance. This allows for true vehicle crash performance to be simulated for the first time.
“The ability to simulate and optimise casting performance at such a granular level means we can now produce organic, highly-optimised designs that were previously beyond human imagination.
“The castings are also designed using secondary, fully-recycled aluminium for the first time, meaning that the PIVOT research could also represent the single biggest step forward in vehicular carbon reduction since the advent of the electric car – whilst dramatically reducing the need for environmentally damaging extractive mining.
“The combined effect of all this technology is that we can finally, fully exploit the full potential of liquid metal engineering to create almost any shape or size of component, with no loss of performance.
“That is a really exciting prospect, as we are paving the way for cars, planes, trains and drones to utilise this technology in the future to make them lighter, greener and more cost-effective.”
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