Using materials that are lighter than steel is one of the solutions that several automakers have turned to, as they try to build more efficient vehicles and meet strict fuel economy and emissions standards.
At the moment, carbon fiber is considered the best alternative to steel, as it is more durable, stronger, and more flexible, but it’s not a very economical alternative, since it is much more expensive than steel. Automotive use of carbon fiber is currently limited to racing cars and some luxury models.
But now, a new material has been created, that researchers say is light, yet exceptionally strong, and might be even more appropriate for use in cars than carbon fiber.
Magnesium-Based Metal
A group of researchers from UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new metal that they say is super-strong, but still lighter than the materials that are currently used in car manufacturing. The research was published in the scientific journal Nature.
The metal in question was created from a combination of “magnesium infused with a dense and even dispersal of ceramic silicon carbide nanoparticles”, as the report states. The new metal consists of 86 percent magnesium and 14 percent silicon carbide nanoparticles.
“It’s been proposed that nanoparticles could really enhance the strength of metals without damaging their plasticity, especially light metals like magnesium, but no groups have been able to disperse ceramic nanoparticles in molten metals until now. With an infusion of physics and materials processing, our method paves a new way to enhance the performance of many different kinds of metals by evenly infusing dense nanoparticles to enhance the performance of metals to meet energy and sustainability challenges in today’s society,” says Xiaochun Li, the leader of the project and Raytheon Chair in Manufacturing Engineering at UCLA.
Can Be Used in Automotive Applications
Researchers say that the new metal they created has numerous advantages over conventional materials and has several properties that make it suitable for use in the car manufacturing process.
For one thing, it is stiffer and stronger than most other materials, and more durable under high temperatures, which researchers say is a result of the infusion of many silicon carbide nanoparticles into magnesium.
Thanks to these properties, the metal is perfect for buildings, spacecraft, and airplanes, on top of cars. It can withstand record levels of weight before it breaks, according to researchers, which means that it can be used as a structural metal, but the fact that it’s very light, makes it a perfect material to build vehicles.
Magnesium is the lightest structural metal in the world. It is 34% lighter than aluminum, a metal that can reduce a vehicle’s body mass by as much as 40% by replacing steel, but its use is also limited due to high costs.
What’s more, magnesium is one of the most abundant elements on Earth, and researchers say that the technique they used to create the new metal can be used for high-volume production, so it can be expected that the auto industry will show interest in it and that it will find its way in cars in the near future.