Grant: Automotive Partnership Canada Project

This Automotive Partnership Canada project will establish a Canadian research capacity for fabrication and performance testing of light-weight multi-material automotive structures. The research to be conducted will address the complex interactions between component manufacturing, joining, corrosion, durability and crashworthiness within the context of a magnesium-intensive multi-material light-weight structure. Component-level manufacturing process technologies to be addressed include super vacuum die casting and non-isothermal warm sheet forming. Resistance spot welding and adhesive-only joints will be developed and evaluated to join magnesium to aluminum and other magnesium components. These joining methods will be compared to the rivet/adhesive bonding process, the industry standard, to identify potential lower-cost joining solutions. The individual components and joining processes will be used to fabricate a multi material light-weight demonstrator structure to be utilized as a test bed to examine key elements of structural performance, namely corrosion resistance, durability and impact crashworthiness thereby enabling a holistic study of the inter-relationship between manufacturing and in-service performance. The APC proposal also will see development of key corrosion fatigue and structural crashworthiness testing infrastructure reqUired to evaluate the corrosion protection and joining technologies associated with a multi-material structure. Advanced numerical models of manufacturing and in-service performance will be developed to enable efficient computer-aided engineering in support offuture vehicle development. A strong team comprising researchers from the University of Waterloo, McMaster University, the University of Western Ontario, and CANMET, will be led by Canada's major Tier 1 automotive manufacturer, Magna-Cosma, along with Huys, Meridian and 3M. This APC project vfill also support Canadian participation in a major international collaborative program, involving Canada, the Unite,j States and China, known as MFERD (Magnesium Front End Research and Development) which is funded by the United States Automotive Materials Partnership. This APC project will serve to establish a sustainable researcher cluster that will directly position the Canadian automotive sector to manufacture competitive, next generation light-weight structures.