Designing a new sustainable approach to the change for lightweight materials in structural components used in truck industry

Reducing emissions and improving fuel economy are very important concerns for the heavy-duty transportation industry. Removing weight from vehicles increases performance and efficiency; this consequently lowers produced emissions and improves fuel consumption. For commercial vehicle manufacturers, the introduction of cost-competitive lightweight materials provides great potential to achieve these objectives. Ferrous cast materials, due to their high specific strength per cost ratio and flexibility to be used with casting processes are good alternatives to produce structural components, as weight savings can be achieved. Numerous parts used in heavy-duty transportation vehicles need to be redesigned to fully take advantage of the increasing developments of metallic alloys. These materials with higher strength allow the reduction of part thickness while maintaining similar mechanical resistance properties. However, there are no established procedures that can help designers to reassess their previous projects and aid them in making new design decisions in order to achieve weight savings on heavy-duty vehicles. Vehicles of such nature are intensively used in ground transportation and are responsible for a considerable amount of emissions. This work intends to create a novel procedure to help select and change the materials used for structural components of commercial vehicles, being certainly useful to alert and aid designers in updating their preexisting designs. Due to the complex geometry of the components utilized on cars, trucks and similar vehicles and regarding the strength requirements usually demanded by customers, casting processes assume a relevant status when considering the selection of the material/process combo to be used. Thus, a flow diagram was created containing relevant questions and answer paths, allowing the designer to easily re-think about the materials currently in use and bring to the discussion new materials and manufacturing processes. By introducing lightweight components in a more efficient way through well-selected materials alongside with contemplation of the manufacturing processes to be used, design engineers simultaneously enhance weight reduction; promote time savings, decrease energy consumption and achieve emission gains. As a case study, this work presents lightweight ferrous cast materials as a good weight reducing alternatives, as well as the procedure for materials selection for heavy-duty structural components. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.