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• Non/low-carbon production of primary Mg. • Increased end-of-life recycling of Mg components. • Corrosion-resistant and "stainless" Mg alloys. • Flame-resistant Mg alloy development. • Alloy development for high thermal and electric conductivity. • Mega-casting development. • Room temperature sheet applications. • Additive manufacturing. • Mg-ion battery development. • Hydrogen storage. As the lightest structural metal and one of the most abundant metallic elements on earth, magnesium (Mg) has been used as an "industrial metal" for lightweighting in the transportation and electronics industries, in addition to other traditional applications in aluminum alloying, steel desulfurization and protective anodes. In recent years, research has shown significant potential for Mg to become a "technology metal" in a variety of new applications from energy storage/battery to biomedical products. However, global Mg production has shown steady but moderate growth in the last three decades. Mg applications as an industry metal are still limited due to some sustainability concerns of primary Mg production, as well as a number of technical issues related to the structural and corrosion performance of commercial Mg alloys. New Mg applications as an industrial or technology metal face tremendous technical challenges, which have been reflected in the intensified global research efforts in the last twenty years. This paper will review some past and present applications, and discuss future opportunities and challenges for Mg research and applications for the global Mg community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being a major global carbon emitter, the manufacturing industry has been under increasing scrutiny to fabricate products that have lower carbon emissions. One of the approaches to reduce the carbon emissions of products is through the use of ecodesign in product design. This means that beyond the consideration of functionality and cost, design decision on variables such as the design's geometry and material will be made with the consideration of the product's environmental sustainability. In this work, a novel ecodesign methodology that incorporates material selection with the concept of light weighting through the use of topology optimisation is proposed to improve the environmental sustainability of structural mechanical products. The goal of this work is to generate alternative designs composed of unique material and geometry pairings that can meet the design requirements and have lower material carbon emissions as compared to the initial design. The practical application of this approach is further demonstrated in a case study of a swivel C bracket. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility servitization modes are increasingly popular and some literature has suggested that their environmental impacts are less than those of privately owned cars. This research assesses the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of mobility servitization based on different scenarios: carsharing, carpooling and car ownership (representing the range of occupancy rates), and the changes in vehicle technology (lightweighting and electrification). Life Cycle Assessment is selected as the method and results are interpreted in passenger kilometre. The highest GHG reduction is recorded in pooled adoption scenario, representing the highest occupancy rate in servitization modes. The increasing trends of vehicle lightweighting and electrification can potentially reduce the GHG impacts (during production and use phases) by 35–37%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle mass reduction in the automotive industry has become an industry-wide objective. Increasing fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emission targets for engine-powered vehicles, and ambitions for extended range electric vehicles have motivated these reductions in vehicle mass. Mass reduction opportunities in structural automotive applications are increasingly realized through lightweight alloy castings, such as magnesium, primarily due to the ease of component substitution. The traditional benefits of magnesium die-castings including lightweighting and associated compounded mass savings, excellent strength-to-weight ratio, part consolidation, near net-shape forming, dimensional repeatability, and integration of additional components can be realized in closure applications. One recent example is the application of a magnesium die-casting for the structural inner of the liftgate in the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica, replacing nine parts in the previous generation and resulting in a liftgate assembly weight reduction of nearly 50%. The work presented here reviews past and current developments of magnesium die-castings in closure applications and discusses the benefits and challenges of magnesium alloys for these applications, including casting design, corrosion and fastening strategies, and the manufacturing design and assembly methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life cycle assessment is a useful tool that helps to quantify the ecological impact of a product. It also enables us to compare two products. Regardless of its weaknesses, this tool is by far one of the best methods introduced and is one of the most complicated techniques available for environmental assessment. While the benefit of using bio-based materials instead of synthetic materials is well known, to date very few studies are available comparing the two products. The aim of this paper is to compare a currently available car engine beauty cover with a hybrid bio-based cover. This study's results show that the new hybrid materials not only perform better in terms of emissions during car operation (because of the fuel savings resulting from lightweighting), but that their production and end of life is also environmentally benign. A cost analysis of the two types of engine covers shows that the new hybrid materials are a good substitute for current materials because their manufacture costs half that of current materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The front body structure of an automobile should have sufficient stiffness and strength to protect the occupants during a high speed frontal collision; simultaneously, it should not induce unduly high impact loads during a low speed pedestrian collision. The above requirements appear to be in conflict with each other. Traditionally, the design solutions for crashworthiness and pedestrian safety have been addressed separately by designing the front rails and back-up structure of a car for crashworthiness and occupant safety, while optimizing the front bumper for pedestrian impact protection. In the current study, it is shown that it would be more prudent to pose the tasks of designing a vehicle for frontal impact and pedestrian impact safety as a single problem of weight reduction (i.e. lightweighting) by considering major vehicle crash safety requirements in the form of US-NCAP (United States New Car Assessment Program) and IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) offset impact test standards, and pedestrian impact safety according to the EEVC/WG17 (European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee/Working Group 17) standard. To illustrate this methodology, a finite element model of a passenger car sold in the USA at one time is chosen and simulation is carried out extensively in the form of nonlinear explicit dynamic analysis using a robust commercial solver viz. LS-DYNA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Automotive demand for cast aluminum rises with use of lightweighting techniques. • Distinguishing alloy type in recycling avoids downcycling of aluminum scrap. • Advanced vehicle recycling recovers 1,054–7,152 kt of wrought aluminum by 2050. • Recycled wrought aluminum saves 10–37% of primary aluminum in vehicle use by 2050. Electrification and vehicle weight reduction (lightweighting) trends are driving demand for wrought aluminum alloys. Given that aluminum scrap is currently downgraded as it is recycled into cast aluminum alloys, an imbalance in aluminum cycles is predicted to occur. We identified secondary aluminum flows by distinguishing alloy type in China with material flow analysis. Considering the adoption of advanced recovery techniques and the trends towards greater use of electric vehicles and vehicle lightweighting, we also estimated changes in the automotive demand for wrought and cast alloys along with aluminum scrap generation, as well as the reduced amount of primary aluminum used in automobiles. The results revealed the potential to recycle about 87−183 kt of wrought alloys in 2019 and about 1,054−7,152 kt in 2050 within a well-managed vehicle recycling system, thereby reducing the amount of primary aluminum ingot required for automobile production by 10−37% between 2019 to 2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Targets to cut 2050 CO2 emissions in the steel and aluminium sectors by 50%, whilst demand is expected to double, cannot be met by energy efficiency measures alone, so options that reduce total demand for liquid metal production must also be considered. Such reductions could occur through reduced demand for final goods (for instance by life extension), reduced demand for material use in each product (for instance by lightweight design) or reduced demand for material to make existing products. The last option, improving the yield of manufacturing processes from liquid metal to final product, is attractive in being invisible to the final customer, but has had little attention to date. Accordingly this paper aims to provide an estimate of the potential to make existing products with less liquid metal production. Yield ratios have been measured for five case study products, through a series of detailed factory visits, along each supply chain. The results of these studies, presented on graphs of cumulative energy against yield, demonstrate how the embodied energy in final products may be up to 15 times greater than the energy required to make liquid metal, due to yield losses. A top-down evaluation of the global flows of steel and aluminium showed that 26% of liquid steel and 41% of liquid aluminium produced does not make it into final products, but is diverted as process scrap and recycled. Reducing scrap substitutes production by recycling and could reduce total energy use by 17% and 6% and total CO2 emissions by 16% and 7% for the steel and aluminium industries respectively, using forming and fabrication energy values from the case studies. The abatement potential of process scrap elimination is similar in magnitude to worldwide implementation of best available standards of energy efficiency and demonstrates how decreasing the recycled content may sometimes result in emission reductions. Evidence from the case studies suggests that whilst most companies are aware of their own yield ratios, few, if any, are fully aware of cumulative losses along their whole supply chain. Addressing yield losses requires this awareness to motivate collaborative approaches to improvement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]