Conceptual Lightweighting for Sustainable Mobility
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Conceptual Lightweighting for Sustainable Mobility AUTHOR
Lightweight design is about more than just substituting heavy materials with lighter ones. With the method of conceptual lightweighting, free engineering can be begun that works more holistically and achieves considerable cost and manufacturing savings. The Development Agency for Lightweighting Baden-Württemberg presents new road vehicle concepts in three application examples from Puls, Edag Engineering and Teamobility.
FEWER EMISSIONS
Weight savings are always worthwhile: As well as eliminating unnecessary kilograms, the amount of valuable raw materials needed to manufacture the product is also reduced. A lighter air craft or automobile for example will consume less fuel and produce fewer emissions. That is the original guid ing principle of the lightweight design philosophy.
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In conventional lightweight design, heavy materials such as steel are re placed by lighter materials such as aluminum or carbon fibers. However, many industries have already exhausted their lightweighting potential. For this reason, designers and engineers are faced with the challenge of re-thinking the concepts of conventional lightweight ing and, in a next step, making sensible use of so-called conceptual lightweight ing [1].
Dr. Wolfgang Seeliger is Managing Director of the Development Agency for Lightweighting Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart (Germany).
MAKING CITIES MORE LIVABLE
In conceptual lightweighting, the mind is open; the question is what function a product should fulfill exactly – for exam ple for a vehicle, this would be the trans port function for people or goods. Then, the engineering is tailored precisely to fulfilling this function. Everything that is superfluous is simply left out. As a result the passenger cars and vans of the future will look completely differ
ent from the traditional vehicles known today. This is an advantage for the cities: These vehicles will per form their transport tasks with a mini mum of required resources, thus not only saving material, weight and en ergy, but also reducing emissions – ultimately, these vehicles may even save parking lots, as their dimensions can also be smaller, FIGURE 1. What will the cities of the future look like if, by implication, up to three-quar ters of today’s traffic areas were to be freed up and given back to the people? Lightweighting will, above all, achieve one thing: a better life in the city. Only those regions that can clearly show what they are good at – or even the best at – in this technology field will be success ful in the mobility industry of the future. ENABLER FOR SUSTAINABLE MOBILIT Y
This premise is the starting point for a new study [1] by Leichtbau BW et al., concerning conceptual lightweighting that examines the new forms of mobil ity requirements and any previously untapped potentials. Conceptual light weighting is based on a set of require ments that is as use-case optimized as possible, that means tailored to the customers’ needs. With the functio
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