FY 2003 Progress Report for Automotive Lightweighting Materials

The FY 2003 Progress Report for Automotive Lightweighting Materials focuses on the development and validation of advanced materials and manufacturing technologies to significantly reduce automotive vehicle body and chassis weight without compromising other attributes such as safety, performance, recyclability, and cost.

The document is very large; it has been divided into sections for easier use. Each section is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF. Download Adobe Reader.

Title Page, Contents (PDF 80 KB)
1. Introduction (PDF 191 KB)
2. Automotive Aluminum R&D (PDF 1.70 MB)
3. Advanced Materials Development (PDF 2.24 MB)
4. Polymer Composites R&D (PDF 891 KB)
5. Low-Cost Carbon Fiber (PDF 1.0 MB)
6. Recycling (PDF 242 KB)
7. Enabling Technologies
- 7a. Durability of Carbon-Fiber Composites (PDF 532 KB)
- 7b. Low-Cost Test Methods for Advanced Automotive Composite Materials; Creep Compression Fixture (PDF 306 KB)
- 7c. Intermediate-Rate Crush Response of Crash Energy Management Structures (PDF 207 KB)
- 7d. Composite Crash Energy Management (PDF 247 KB)
- 7e. Energy Absorption in Adhesively Bonded Composites (PDF 477 KB)
- 7f. Long-Life Electrodes for Resistance Spot Welding of Aluminum Sheet Alloys and Coated High-Strength Steel Sheet (PDF 429 KB)
- 7g. Plasma Arc Welding of Lightweight Materials (PDF 442 KB)
- 7h. Performance Evaluation and Durability Prediction of Dissimilar Material Hybrid Joints (PDF 359 KB)
- 7i. Joining of Dissimilar Metals for Automotive Applications: From Process to Performance (PDF 445 KB)
- 7j. Application of Thread-Forming Fasteners in Net-Shaped Holes (PDF 342 KB)
- 7k. Nondestructive Evaluation Tools for Evaluation of Laser-Welded Metals (PDF 232 KB)
- 7l. Inspection of Spot Welds Using an Ultrasonic Phased Array (PDF 436 KB)
- 7m. Technical Cost Modeling (PDF 134 KB)
- 7n. Springback Compensation in Advanced Sheet Forming Materials (PDF 137 KB)
8. High-Strength Steels (PDF 2.03 MB)
Appendix A: Acronyms and Abbreviations (PDF 79 KB)