The Advanced High-Strength Steel Stamping Projects target the expanded use of high strength steels. The DaimlerChrysler effort on this project seeks to validate and improve currently available modeling information to provide reliable springback prediction technology. The General Motors work is focused on development of an empirical knowledge base for use in the die development, design and tryout phases.
The Advanced High-Strength Steel Joining Technologies Project combines the activities of the former Adhesive Bonding and Resistance Welding Projects to address joining technologies for advanced and ultra high strength steels. The new initiatives include the weldability of the advanced high strength steels, the efficacy of weldbonding on weld quality, and the impact properties of welded and bonded assemblies.
The Lightweight Closures Project has selected the design of the front door for a 2002 model year SUV as the basis of a study to reduce mass by as much as 25% while minimizing increased manufacturing cost. Future phases will address rear doors, hoods, rear compartment lids, liftgates, tailgates and sliding doors.
The Lightweight Front End Structures Project is a two phase analysis effort to study the cost and mass effect of practical variations, in automotive front end structure design, required to accommodate vehicle options within a given vehicle family.
The Lightweight SUV Frame Project is focusing on efforts to reduce the weight of SUV frames by 25%. The first phase of the program is a feasibility study on one SUV frame and a second phase will refine the findings of the feasibility study through detailed cost analyses and crash modeling. Two additional SUV frames of other classes will be analyzed for weight reduction opportunities in future activities.
The Tooling Standardization Groups have developed the NAAMS Global Standard Components for both assembly and stamping tooling.This ongoing effort has significantly reduced the time and cost of designing and building assembly and stamping tools through the standardization of components. Essentially, all components reflect metric standards.
The Sheet Steel Fatigue Project develops fatigue data for a range of sheet steels that will be used in durability models to improve automotive design.
The Strain Rate Characterization Project documents mechanical properties of steels at high strain rates to improve the computer modeling of crash simulations.
The Tribology Project will enhance the understanding of the effects of lubricants on springback variation and die wear associated with the stamping of high-strength and ultra high-strength steels.