Weight reduction of automobile by high strength steel

Today, weight reduction is a very important design consideration for carmakers. High strength steel has become a very useful material for lightening the vehicle due to the reduced weight effect and cost. Therefore, high strength steel utilization averages 30 ~ 40% of the automobile weight. The class of 340 MPa to 590 MPa is a mainstream of this utilization-based concept on the body panel and performance. In the future, more strengthening is necessary to promote the weight reduction, however, on the other hand, the strengthening of steel deters the formability. Therefore, the application of a new material, which balances the strength and associated formability such as Dual Phase steel or TRIP steel, has recently been promoted. Honda and Japanese steel manufacturers have developed new TRIP steel. This paper outlines the recent Honda approach to reduce the car weight and its scheme of materials development based on a presentation made at an Arcelor symposium by Tanae et al. (AU)