Advances in Light Weight Materials for Body-in-White (BIW)

Abstract

Conventional metallic materials are getting replaced by lightweight materials in the last two decades for body-in-white (BiW) structural components for all types of vehicles from two wheelers to heavy commercial trucks and passenger buses. The main driving forces are depleting fuel resources leading to the fuel economy standards, safety and crashworthiness legislations, emission regulations, green environment requirements leading to control CO₂, and other toxic gas emissions, recyclability, etc. The auto industry sees developments of light weight steels to aluminum and magnesium alloy, to fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP) emerging to make lighter vehicles. The other influencing factors for light weight materials technology are customer-driven requirements like styling, aesthetic appearance, reduced NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) aspects, and comforts. The future vehicle technology is moving ahead with developments of lithium batteries for electric and hybrid cars and buses, Solar cell and hydrogen-driven fuel systems. These technologies also need light weighting vehicles to use these additional gadgets on the vehicle. Variety of options are available in the market, but lightweight materials play a vital role in vehicle design for tomorrow. In India, the light weight materials technology has yet to make a great impact and considering ‘‘make in India,’’ the article is focused on challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed soon.