A Technology of Weight Reduction for the Aluminum Cast Wheel

In the field of automobile disk wheels, demands for aluminum wheels have been increasing for the reason of ride comfort and better appearance. And over 90 percent of luxurious passenger cars are equipped with aluminum wheels. This trend is spurred also by the demand for higher fuel efficiency for the cause of environmental protection, which calls for weight reduction of automobiles.

This paper reports our research on manufacturing light-weight, high-quality aluminum cast wheels; covering the entire process from basic design to casting, and placing emphasis on the following three points.

1. 1)
   Determination of optimum wheel configuration through computer simulation
2. 2)
   Selection of optimum material composition
3. 3)
   Optimization of the thin plate casting conditions

Combination of the above technologies developed for the purpose of weight reduction resulted in the weight reduction of approximately 20% over the conventional aluminum wheels.