Door-in-white structures of left hand, front and rear steel (baseline) doors were redesigned to facilitate their manufacture from hot-blow-formed aluminum panels. The door designs each incorporated a “STAR” multi-purpose reinforcement panel. The STAR panel fulfills the functions of the traditional door intrusion beam and the outer belt line reinforcement, and also provides additional reinforcement to one of the door shut-faces. Prototype door-in-white structures were manufactured from quick plastically formed aluminum panels. Mass savings of 5.1 kg/door (front) and 4.7 kg/door (rear) were obtained in the prototype aluminum doors relative to their steel counterparts. The aluminum doors met all static stiffness criteria with the exception of upper header stiffness. FMVSS 214 testing indicated that the doors exhibited acceptable intrusion resistance when tested in the production vehicle (steel) body system. The aluminum doors also performed well in a dynamic LINCAP (full vehicle side impact) test.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
D.C. Seksaria and R.K. Patel, “An Ultra-Light Thin Sliding Door Design – A Multi-Product Multi-Material Solution,” SAE Paper No. 2002-01-0391, 2002
Miller W.S., Zhuang L., Bottems J., Wittebrood A.J., DeSmet P., Haszler A., Vieregge A. (2000) Recent Developments in Aluminum Alloys for the Automotive Industry. Mater. Sci. Eng. v. A280:37–49
D. Seksaria, “A Multiproduct Multimaterial Solution for Lightweight Vehicle Doors,” SAE Paper No 1999-01-3170, 1999
N.W. Smith and J.E. Grant, “Reducing the Cost of Aluminum Body Panels,” SAE Paper 800931, 1980
R.L. Rolf, M.L. Sharp, and H.H Stroebel, “Structural Characteristics of Aluminum Body Sheet,” SAE Paper No. 770200, 1977
J.G. Schroth, “General Motors Quick Plastic Forming Process,” Advances in Superplasticity and Superplastic Forming, E.M. Taleff, P.A. Friedman, P.E. Krajewski, R.S. Mishra, and J.G. Schroth, Eds., TMS, 2004, p 9–20
Krajewski P.E., Schroth J.G. (2007) Overview of Quick Plastic Forming Technology. Mater. Sci. Forum 551–552:3–12
M.S. Rashid and C. Kim, U.S. Patent 5,536,060, “Reinforced Vehicle Door,” July 16, 1996
P.E. Krajewski and J.E. Carsley (2003) “Heat Treatment Effects on Bending in AA6111,” Aluminum 2003, Subodh K. Das, Ed., TMS Annual Meeting, San Diego CA, 2003, p 25–35
Carsley J.E. (2005) Microstructural Evolution During Bending: Conventional vs. Roller Hemming of Aluminum Sheet. In Bieler T.R., Carsley J.E., Fraser H.L., Sears J.W., Smugeresky J.E. (eds) Trends in Materials and Manufacturing Technologies for Transportation Industries. TMS Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, 169–174
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank John Carsley and Mark Verbrugge for helpful comments during the preparation of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article was presented at Materials Science & Technology 2006, Innovations in Metal Forming symposium held October 15–19, 2006 in Cincinnati, OH.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Schroth, J.G., Brueggeman, H.M. & Grewal, N.P. Quick Plastically Formed Aluminum Doors: Design and Performance. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 16, 339–348 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-007-9059-6
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-007-9059-6