Nanostructured high strength aluminium for automotive applications

The automotive industry is the most lucrative market for P/M aluminium. These light weight materials are expected to replace iron and steel parts in automobiles in order to reduce weight, increase fuel efficiency and also reduce exhaust emission. Within a German BMBF funded project the melt spinning technology will be driven to a series production status. A bottom-up route has been used, wherein different aluminium alloys in form of melt-spun ribbons or flakes were consolidated by hot extrusion with the aim to preserve the rapidly solidified initial structure and thus obtain unique mechanical properties. The very fast cooling condition of the melt leads to a nano structure of the aluminum material. This results in new material properties of known alloy systems. The strength increases dramatically without lowered forming behavior. With this process the freedom of designing complex alloys is very flexible. Different alloys have been investigated for several applications, where high strength at room and elevated temperatures and/or high wear resistance is required. This paper presents some results regarding the processing, microstructure and mechanical properties of a developed Al-Ni-Fe alloy.