Just thought this was an interesting factoid...
NSX: Aluminum Intensive
Certainly one of the most striking aluminum-intensive vehicles on the road is the Acura NSX, which was launched in model year 1991.
The NSX is built in a plant in Tochigi, Japan. As it is anything but a high-volume vehicle—fewer than 500 model year 1999 NSXs will be imported to the U.S.—there is no moving assembly line in the plant. Rather, the cars-in-becoming are attached to dollies. They are manually moved from station-to-station.
This NSX is even lighter than the average NSX (assuming, of course, that any NSX can be described as being "average"). It is the 1999 Alex Zanardi edition, named after the two-time CART championship-winning driver who now plies his trade on the Formula One circuit. This NSX is 149 lb. lighter than the NSX-T. (The two biggest contributors to weight savings are the implementation of a fixed hard-top roof and a manual rack-and-pinion steering system rather than the electric power steering setup.) Only 50 of these cars will be built—hand built.
So how aluminum is it?
The standard engine is a 3.0-liter V6: all aluminum. The pistons are aluminum. So as not to have aluminum pistons wearing on aluminum cylinders (which would mean low durability, due to the abrasiveness on the material), there are cast iron cylinder liners used.
The optional 3.2-L engine is somewhat more interesting from a materials standpoint. The cylinders are made with a process called "Fiber Reinforced Metal" (FDM). In production, there are cylinder cores consisting of carbon fibers in an alumina (Al2O3) matrix. The cylinder block's aluminum alloy is poured around these cores. The cores absorb the molten aluminum. Then the IDs of the cores are bored so that there is a 0.5-mm thick layer of the material remaining, which provides a tough, wear-resistant cylinder wall. If cast iron liners were used in this engine, it would weigh 2.4 kg more. The pistons in the 3.2-L engine are given an iron coating.
The cylinder heads for the engines are low-pressure cast aluminum. The head gasket on the 3.2-L engine is produced with stainless steel, as the issue was one of assuring a positive seal with the FDM cylinders.
(Weight savings in the connecting rods is achieved by using a titanium alloy instead of steel. This saves 190 grams per rod.)
(The crankshaft is a forged high-strength steel.)
Forged aluminum is used for all suspension arms. The front steering and rear hub carriers are made from heat-treated aluminum castings.
While aluminum wheels are not uncommon, one of the differences on the NSX is that the wheels are forged aluminum, not the more common cast aluminum. As a result, the wheels reduce unsprung weight without giving up anything in strength.
Because this is (obviously) a performance car (and a Honda), it has to be rigid and rattle free. After all, this is a car built to be driven in a way that few cars are. So the engineers literally cranked up a Cray supercomputer and began running finite element modeling and stress analysis routines to come up with an all-aluminum chassis for the mid-engine vehicle that, including closure panels (doors, hood, decklid), weighs 210 kg, which is calculated to be 40% less than an equally rigid and safe steel chassis would weigh.
The doors, fenders, and front and rear decklids are produced with a 6000 series aluminum alloy that permits thinner gage sheet to be used without giving up anything in strength. (E.g., the doors are 2.2 kg lighter than they otherwise would be.)
In order to assure rigidity, aluminum extrusions are used for the side sills.
The removable aluminum top is aluminum. It weighs 8.5 kg.
One of the consequences of the aluminum body panels is a step in the painting process that is more common to the aircraft industry than the auto industry: a chromate coating is employed. Of course, one might argue that this vehicle really flies. . . .
NSX: Aluminum Intensive
Certainly one of the most striking aluminum-intensive vehicles on the road is the Acura NSX, which was launched in model year 1991.
The NSX is built in a plant in Tochigi, Japan. As it is anything but a high-volume vehicle—fewer than 500 model year 1999 NSXs will be imported to the U.S.—there is no moving assembly line in the plant. Rather, the cars-in-becoming are attached to dollies. They are manually moved from station-to-station.
This NSX is even lighter than the average NSX (assuming, of course, that any NSX can be described as being "average"). It is the 1999 Alex Zanardi edition, named after the two-time CART championship-winning driver who now plies his trade on the Formula One circuit. This NSX is 149 lb. lighter than the NSX-T. (The two biggest contributors to weight savings are the implementation of a fixed hard-top roof and a manual rack-and-pinion steering system rather than the electric power steering setup.) Only 50 of these cars will be built—hand built.
So how aluminum is it?
The standard engine is a 3.0-liter V6: all aluminum. The pistons are aluminum. So as not to have aluminum pistons wearing on aluminum cylinders (which would mean low durability, due to the abrasiveness on the material), there are cast iron cylinder liners used.
The optional 3.2-L engine is somewhat more interesting from a materials standpoint. The cylinders are made with a process called "Fiber Reinforced Metal" (FDM). In production, there are cylinder cores consisting of carbon fibers in an alumina (Al2O3) matrix. The cylinder block's aluminum alloy is poured around these cores. The cores absorb the molten aluminum. Then the IDs of the cores are bored so that there is a 0.5-mm thick layer of the material remaining, which provides a tough, wear-resistant cylinder wall. If cast iron liners were used in this engine, it would weigh 2.4 kg more. The pistons in the 3.2-L engine are given an iron coating.
The cylinder heads for the engines are low-pressure cast aluminum. The head gasket on the 3.2-L engine is produced with stainless steel, as the issue was one of assuring a positive seal with the FDM cylinders.
(Weight savings in the connecting rods is achieved by using a titanium alloy instead of steel. This saves 190 grams per rod.)
(The crankshaft is a forged high-strength steel.)
Forged aluminum is used for all suspension arms. The front steering and rear hub carriers are made from heat-treated aluminum castings.
While aluminum wheels are not uncommon, one of the differences on the NSX is that the wheels are forged aluminum, not the more common cast aluminum. As a result, the wheels reduce unsprung weight without giving up anything in strength.
Because this is (obviously) a performance car (and a Honda), it has to be rigid and rattle free. After all, this is a car built to be driven in a way that few cars are. So the engineers literally cranked up a Cray supercomputer and began running finite element modeling and stress analysis routines to come up with an all-aluminum chassis for the mid-engine vehicle that, including closure panels (doors, hood, decklid), weighs 210 kg, which is calculated to be 40% less than an equally rigid and safe steel chassis would weigh.
The doors, fenders, and front and rear decklids are produced with a 6000 series aluminum alloy that permits thinner gage sheet to be used without giving up anything in strength. (E.g., the doors are 2.2 kg lighter than they otherwise would be.)
In order to assure rigidity, aluminum extrusions are used for the side sills.
The removable aluminum top is aluminum. It weighs 8.5 kg.
One of the consequences of the aluminum body panels is a step in the painting process that is more common to the aircraft industry than the auto industry: a chromate coating is employed. Of course, one might argue that this vehicle really flies. . . .
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