Lightweighting of heavy-duty and commercial trucks isn’t just about lower emissions, fuel efficiency, or longer e-truck battery range – it’s also about freight efficiency: hauling more to earn more. AHSS/UHSS steels can help.
Heavy-duty and commercial truck components that switched from traditional carbon steel to lightweight aluminum, or even carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs), are now excellent candidates for more economical and durable advanced high-strength steels (AHSSs) and ultra-high strength steels (UHSSs).
Truck manufacturers are eager to leverage the auto industry’s decades-long experience with using AHSS/UHSS steels to make cars safer, lighter, carry more, and last longer. The following is a quick review of the many AHSS/UHSS application possibilities available today for commercial and heavy-duty truck manufacturers.
Just converting a heavy-duty truck frame from traditional (e.g., 827 MPa) steel to 1100 MPa martensitic steel can save 90 kg. And aluminum’s reduced stiffness – when compared to steel – makes sagging a problem, ruling out aluminum frame rails for a range of weight-sensitive trucks, such as tankers. Docol® AHSS steels can be used for both heavy-duty trucks as well as pick-ups, light commercial vehicles, and city trucks.
Suitable steel grades:
We want to transfer our knowledge in lightweighting cars while increasing safety performance – but we can only do so together with you, the truck manufacturer. Consider Docol® Martensitic (M), Complex Phase (CP), High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) with metal-coated (MC) grades.
Docol AHSS steels are a much more economical approach than aluminum for lightweighting truck cross members, with much better fatigue, stiffness, and resistance to twisting.
Suitable steel grades:
We want to transfer our knowledge in lightweighting cars while increasing safety performance – but we can only do so together with you, the truck manufacturer. Consider Docol® Martensitic (M), Complex Phase (CP), High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) with metal-coated (MC) grades.
Making sleeper cabs lightweight – but comfortable – is key for many trucking companies. AHSS/UHSS steels are ideal for lightweighting truck cabin structures – plus they use forming processes already familiar to OEMs.
Suitable steel grades:
Consider Docol® Martensitic (M), Complex Phase (CP) or Dual Phase (DP) grades.
UHSS steels, whether cold-formed martensitic or hot-formed PHS grades, can create weigh-saving, cost-effective bumpers for excellent crash protection.
Suitable steel grades:
Consider Docol® Martensitic (M), Press-Hardening steel (PHS), Complex Phase (CP) or Dual Phase (DP) grades.
A lightweight UHSS battery enclosure not only protects a truck’s large EV battery packs – it can also provide torsional stiffness. The Docol EV Design Concept includes energy-absorbing sill beams, energy-transferring floor cross members, and 3D cold-roll-formed battery-carrying structure.
Suitable steel grades:
Consider Docol® Martensitic (M), Complex Phase (CP) or Dual Phase (DP) grades.
AHSS and UHSS steel components can frequently be made with cold-forming equipment that truck OEMs already use – with relatively minor upgrades to tooling for the higher strength material. Plus, Docol steels are as CO2 efficient as recycled steels, making them a sustainable choice.
For many truckers, lightweighting isn’t so much about fuel efficiency as it is about total cost and freight efficiency: being able to earn higher revenue by hauling more — while staying under the legal weight limits. Some truck components that had been switched from traditional carbon steel to lightweight aluminum, or even carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs), are now good candidates for more economical and durable advanced high strength steels (AHSSs).
The basic shape of the car hasn’t changed much in a century, but a lot of evolution has happened to the body structure. Thanks to advanced high-strength steel grades from SSAB, Shape Corp. has been able to improve the body structure components of vehicles, with increased safety and reduced weight as a result.
In this 30-minute webinar, SSAB’s Jonas Adolfsson will show how lightweighting with advanced and ultra-high strength steels can improve your heavy truck customers’ freight efficiencies — so they can haul more and earn more.