February 2023 Volume 5

MATERIALS

The Future for Magnesium Forgings Magnesium has the potential to play a critical role in the automotive industry. “From my perspective, magnesium is a criminally underestimated material,” said Christoph Schendera, 15 managing director of the European Research Association Magnesium e.V. in Aalen, Germany. “It is not only the most important alloying element for the aluminum industry for improving strength, toughness, and corrosion resistance, magnesium is also an important material for ideal lightweight construction in combination with aluminum, high-strength steels, or fiber-reinforced plastics.” Schendera added, “Aluminum and magnesium represent the ideal material combination in modern lightweight construction due to their physical and mechanical material properties, processability, and recyclability. But we have not managed to establish magnesium accordingly. Magnesium has also not received the support it needs from policymakers, and we have watched a magnesium monopoly being developed in China.” Despite the various reasons as to why magnesium is not in favor today, the case study presented in this article shows that there is tremendous upside potential in lightweighting with magnesium for difficult, safety critical automotive applications. The chicken and egg scenario that currently exists is that OEMs are not requesting magnesium forgings, so the market is not innovating and developing solutions for magnesium forgings. However, because so much magnesium is used for alloying aluminum and steel, that alone ought to be a motivation to develop local supply, which will provide opportunity to develop and build further applications from there.

References 1. Bray, Lee, “Magnesium Statistics and Information,” USGS, September 2021, www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals information-center/magnesium-statistics-and-information. 2. “Steering Wheels,” Autoliv, https://www.autoliv.com/safety solutions/steering-wheels. 3. Abraham, Abey, “Automotive Materials in an Electrified World,” Ducker Inc, IMA, August 24, 2021. 4. Balzer, Jason S., and Vladimir V. Bogachuk, “Thin-walled magnesium diecast shock tower for use in a vehicle,” Ford Global Technologies LLC, March 9, 2015, https://patents.google.com/ patent/US9517796B2/en?oq=US9517796B2. 5. Email with Matt Hamblin, Keronite Group Ltd., September 15, 2022, www.keronite.com. 6. “Kaiser Warrick Calls Off Force Majeure Thanks to New Magnesium Supplier,” Aluminium Insider, September 22, 2022, https://aluminiuminsider.com/kaiser-warrick-calls-of f-force majeure-thanks-to-new-magnesium-supplier. 7. Conversation with Rick DeLorme, Steven Barela, and Josh Caris, Terves/MagnesiumUSA. 8. Paracha, Talal, “Modelling of the Forging Process for aMagnesium Alloy Automotive Control Arm,” University of Waterloo, April 30, 2018, https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/13216. 9. “Products,” Magnesium USA, http://magnesium-usa. com/#products. 10. “Products,” Mag Specialties, https://www.magspecialtiesinc.com/ products. 11. “Howdoes Allite SuperMagnesiumCompare toOtherMaterials?,” Allite, Inc. https://alliteinc.com/super-magnesium. 12. “Die Forged Magnesium Automotive Front Lower Control Arm,” IMA, 2021, https://www.intlmag.org/page/showcase2021- wrought. 13. Gryguc, Andrew, “Fatigue of Forged AZ80 Magnesium Alloy,” University of Waterloo, 2019, https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/ bitstream/handle/10012/15160/Gryguc_Andrew.pdf. 14. Halonen, Andrew, “Suspension & Brake Caliper Material Study,” 2022, https://lightweighting.co/market-research. 15. “Magnesium is criminally underestimated (Part 1),” ALUMINIUM 2022, Dusseldorf, Germany, January 12, 2022, https://www.aluminium-exhibition.com/en-gb/media/news/ Schendera-Interview1.html.

Andrew Halonen is President of Mayflower Consulting, LLC, a lightweighting consultancy that provides strategic marketing, market research and business development for high tech clients. Andrew works with castings, extrusions, brakes, suspensions, machine learning, and new material development programs, and is a guest writer for Light Metal Age. Andrew Halonen Mayflower Consulting, LLC

Phone: 906-370-4984 www.lightweighting.co

Reprinted with permission: Original article source - Light Metal Age https://www.lightmetalage.com/news/industry-news/automotive/the-potential for-magnesium-forgings-in-automotive/

FIA MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2023 39