Lightweight Materials Improves Car Safety:
Modern cars must fulfill numerous strict safety requirements, both for drivers and passengers, and pedestrians. The lightweight of aluminum makes it possible to increase the safety characteristics of the car and at the same time reduce its weight. The ability of a unit mass of aluminum to absorb energy during its deformation is twice as high as that of mild carbon steel and no worse than that of the latest high-strength steels that have been specially developed for this purpose. Aluminum is one of best known light weight material which is used in car these days. It is very reasonable metal and used by most of car companies. Below are some reasons why it is safe to use Lightweight Materials in Automotive Applications.
Car Accident Physics:
Vehicle speed is a critical factor in all car accidents. This directly follows from the physics of a car colliding with an obstacle or, even worse, with an oncoming car. The greater the mass of the car and the faster it moves, the greater its kinetic energy. Kinetic energy, as we all know from school, is proportional to the mass and square of the speed of this mass. This means that when the car’s speed is doubled, its kinetic energy increases four times!
When a car collides with an obstacle, its speed drops sharply to zero. This rate of decrease in the speed of physics is called acceleration. According to Newton’s second law, the magnitude of the force that arises upon impact is proportional to the mass of the car and this acceleration (deceleration). This acceleration, simplified, is obtained by dividing the speed by the duration of this impact from its beginning to a complete stop.
The main objective of automotive energy absorption systems is to stretch the duration of the impact as much as possible, thereby reducing the resulting acceleration and, therefore, reduce the magnitude of the force arising from the impact.
- Contribution of aluminum to car safety
- Aluminum contributes to car safety in two ways:
- Reduces the total mass of the car;
Aluminum systems reduce acceleration due to the transfer of a large part of the collision energy into the work of plastic deformation of aluminum components.
Bodywork Safety:
To fulfill various safety requirements, modern cars have a rigid, stable passenger “capsule”. It provides the necessary survival space in the event of an accident. This space is surrounded by crumpled areas in which the energy of an accidental collision of a car is effectively absorbed without exceeding accelerations critical for people. When designing a car body, the most important thing is to find an acceptable compromise between structural rigidity, the ability to absorb collision energy and its functional characteristics as a vehicle.
In this sense, aluminum is an ideal material for solving these, in many ways contradictory, requirements with the achievement of maximum functional characteristics and minimum weight. So Lightweight Materials in Automotive Applications is good to use from safety point of view as well from rates. The use of SAF Aluminum by Cymat Technologies in the parts that make up cars and trucks has increased steadily in the last decade.
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