Resource optimization through new Mg-lightweight concept components

Reduction of energy and waste through the development of polymer coated cold formable Mg sheets

Excellent magnesium sheets for the automotive industry were successfully produced within the AiF-funded project "CoFoMag", in close cooperation with researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research, the Fraunhofer Institute IWU and the Warsaw Institute of Technology. The demonstrator component showed a similar forming performance as the competitive aluminium AA6014-T4 part. Furthermore, this innovative lightweight material system significantly reduces the consumption of resources (including water, lubricants and energy) in the production and processing of magnesium-based semi-finished materials.”

# Institute of Material and Process Design # Research field: Helmholtz Information # Hereon research focus: Technology # Business & Industry # Industry, innovation and infrastructure # Responsible consumption and production # Climate action # Partnership for the goals # Patents # IP exploitation # Processes and Materials Systems for Sustainable Transportation

Project CoFoMag

CoFoMag Approach

The CoFoMag project commenced with the development of a material system centered around an optimized magnesium sheet alloy, designed to be easily formed at room temperature. Subsequently, the formable Mg sheet was coated with an effective layer of corrosion protection, ensuring its functionality even after the forming process. This surface/corrosion protection was achieved using a novel, forming stable powder coating, which could be applied in a coil coating process right after the final rolling pass and then thermally cured. To enhance the material's tribological properties during forming, additional additives were integrated into the powder coating formulation. This innovative approach aimed to eliminate the need for separate lubricants in cold forming operations.
To evaluate the lightweight material system realistically, a real-scale demonstrator part was manufactured to replace the original aluminum alloy and lubrication. An economic analysis based on this demonstrator part revealed that the CoFoMag approach could significantly reduce manufacturing costs compared to conventional warm forming of commercially available Mg-alloys. Specifically, the CoFoMag approach resulted in almost a two-fold cost reduction, making it a promising and economically viable alternative.

In summary, the following goals were achieved:

• improvement of 54 % in RT formability of the ZEWK alloy in comparison to the state-of-the-art ZE10 alloy
• excellent stretch forming behavior at RT of the lightweight system due to significant the reduction of friction by integrating a self-lubrication function into the powder coating
• There are no significant differences of the production of the ZEWK alloy in comparison to the production and processing of conventional Mg alloys
• Improved corrosion resistance could be reached by using a novel surface preparation.
• 40 % reduction in manufacturing costs compared to the use of conventional alloys which require tempered forming processes and coated after forming
With the gained knowledge, the lightweight potential of magnesium sheet metal alloys can be used for a broader range of industrial applications, specially produced by SMEs. In comparison to the conventional production process of magnesium sheet components, the new combination of protection layer and cold formable magnesium sheet will also save energy and reduce chemicals and waste in the production process, because of the low forming temperature and the saved removal of temporary coatings/oils/lubricants from the sheet during transportation and processing. The targeted systematic studies on the forming behavior and the component properties of the new material system open up new and sustainable solutions at SMEs for an intelligent lightweight construction and their implementation in large-scale production. Therewith the current trend to reduce CO2-emissions, reducing waste and saving of process steps by lean process chains, e.g. in the automotive industry and its suppliers (SMEs), is taken into account.
The aims of the research project were achieved.

Advantages & Impact

• Unique synergy of research institutions to develop new Mg lightweight hybrid structural concepts.

• Innovation resulting in a reduction of the energy consumption and production of waste through the use of new lightweight technologies.

Stretch forming test: Force-displacement curve during Erichsen test of a bare and a coated ZEWK sample. For comparison the average penetration depths of the conventional AZ31 and the conventional rare-earth containing alloy ZE10 are displayed.
CoFoMag automotive part demonstrator a) Forming Limit Diagram for complete forming; b) forming results experiment for room temperature formable ZEWK alloy and c) FE-Simulation results using the material properties
CoFoMag automotive part demonstrator – Overview and ranking of the forming results. Excellent results by using the developed polymer formulation on the room temperature formable Mg alloy using conventional industrial conditions
CoFoMag FLC RT CoFoMag plus Demonstrator