NEWS
6
ONLINE
■ Rolls-Royce backs nuclear
Rolls-Royce is establishing a
business unit to address the global
market for civil nuclear power. The
company estimates the worldwide
market could be worth £50bn a
year in 15 years. 'The expansion of
the civil nuclear market represents
an exciting opportunity, which
builds on our extensive nuclear
capabilities,' said Sir John Rose,
chief executive. The unit will
support a number of the phases
of a civil nuclear programme,
including providing advice to
governments and operators,
technical engineering support
and safety assessments,
manufacturing, procurement and
through life support.
■ Power stake
E.ON and Denmark’s DONG Energy
have bought Shell's stake in the
London Array offshore wind farm
for an undisclosed fee. The two
companies will now become equal
joint partners in the project, which,
when built in the outer Thames
Estuary, could generate enough
power to supply a quarter of
Greater London homes. E.ON
hopes the first phase should be
completed by the end of 2012.
■ Molecule discovery
Surrey University researchers have
discovered a way to use the
spherical ‘bucky ball’ molecule C60
to make pure carbon nanocrystals,
which could be used in solar cells
and gas sensors. By mixing two
liquids together, one of which
contains C60, at low
temperatures, lozenge-shaped
crystals with widths of 80nm are
created much smaller than is
possible using other methods. The
electronic properties of the C60
molecules may allow researchers
to accelerate the development of
nanotechnologies.
More stories available online at:
theengineer.co.uk
Shape up
New technique to heat-form aluminimum alloys could mean lighter car parts in one go
The technology would mean car doors could be formed more easily and cost-efficiently
A PROCESS for heat-forming
aluminium alloys could help meet
the growing demand from the
automotive industry for lightweight
materials.
Researchers at Imperial College
London, in a project supported by
Aston Martin and Lotus Engineering,
will investigate a process called
solution heat treatment, forming
and cold-die quenching (HFQ).
It will be used for shaping
components such as bonnets and
side wing panels out of sheet
aluminium alloys in a single
operation.
Imperial’s Prof Jianguo Lin said:
‘Lightweight automotive parts are
very important for energy and
reducing emissions, so many
components are made from
aluminium alloys. For example,
Jaguar doors were previously
formed in one piece from mild steel
because it is more ductile and has
higher formability, which means we
can have larger deformation without
failure.
‘But then the company changed
to aluminium alloy, which is difficult
because the formability is very low.
So the panel had to be redesigned
so it could be made with a number
of fibre components that are welded
and joined together to form one
piece. That would be much lighter,
but it is very expensive.’
Traditional methods of shaping
aluminium alloy components —
cold forming (carried out at room
temperature) and hot stamping —
are said to have problems that the
HFQ process would overcome.
Cold forming, for example,
causes low ductility and high
springback (the metal returns to its
original shape after undergoing
stress). And hot stamping destroys
the desirable microstructure of the
material, which may distort the final
formed panels.
‘Aston Martin gave us a sample
aluminium alloy component design
and they have proved that it is not
possible to form the alloy using
traditional technology. We are
trying to test it out using HFQ
the EnGIneeR 28 JULY–17 AUGUST 2008
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