Finishing strong

Combining high strength with formability, today's new steels support development of lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles-without compromising safety, cost, or performance.

With gas prices hovering around $3 per gallon, automakers face increasing pressure to find new and better ways to further improve fuel economy. Yet the need to continue to improve passenger safety is just as compelling. One technology that has helped to accomplish both goals is tied to the concept of vehicle lightweighting-lowering total vehicle weight by optimizing material usage and component dimensions.

Automakers have approached this challenge by searching for higher-strength materials that could be downgauged yet still perform comparably to a traditional material. This seemingly simple solution-finding and substituting a higher-strength material-is complicated by a fundamental trade-off in the mechanical properties of strength and ductility. Typically, as a metal's strength increases, its ductility decreases. As a result, high-strength metals-including metals that are strong enough to perform well at thinner gauges-are typically difficult and often preventatively costly to form into the desired shapes for many automotive applications.