Potential of Casting Technologies for Car Body Structure Components

The car body structure faces a major transformation caused by simultaneously occurring developments like the shift to battery electric vehicles and rapidly progressing manufacturing technologies like Gigacasting. Especially the volume of casting components in the structure is consistently increasing and transforming both product and production. However, the number of available technologies, functional requirements and application scenarios makes it challenging to decide upon which technologies and components to use for which structure area. This paper provides an interdisciplinary approach for assessing the application potential of casting technologies for structure components considering both the potential contribution in the product in terms of achieving the functional requirements and the potential effort in production. The validation at a German automotive original equipment manufacturer demonstrates the practical feasibility.