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Car structures are often made of aluminum anyway, do these parts use significantly more than e.g. bonded extrusions?
by HPsquared 4y ago
Car structures are often made of aluminum anyway, do these parts use significantly more than e.g. bonded extrusions?
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoThese presses are for complex and fairly thick structural parts. Think like radiator core supports, subframes, dashboard support structures and control arms. Yhe resultant parts are substantially more expensive than the stamped and welded steel they replace. The range of cost difference vs steel also wide because the complexity of the part and the shape of the part affect the service life and initial cost of the die a lot. Some parts lend themselves well to the process, some don't. What this increased expense buys you is weight and NVH improvements. In previous cases aluminum has been used for car bodies and cosmetic sheet-metal panels. The cost difference vs steel is not nearly as large in that application.
- bluetomcat 4y agoBig car manufacturers use their own modular platforms for the chassis of different vehicles, in order to optimise R&D and production costs. An upsized vehicle from the range usually uses the same basic platform with a few size adjustments here and there. "Gigacasting" would require them to create moulds for every individual part.