In the same time it takes to pop a balloon with a needle, your day can go from mundane to life changing. That’s how quickly a car crash can happen– in 67 milliseconds or less, about the length of time for a balloon pop. How your vehicle is designed to perform in a crash is crucial for your protection in split seconds.
The fact is, some cars fare better than others in a collision. Automakers are continually working to improve their vehicles’ crash performance because they want to deliver safe vehicles to you. Over the past several years, the global steel industry has undertaken several projects whose purpose was to demonstrate the use of the newest generation of advanced high-strength steels to reduce vehicle mass, a key factor for fuel efficiency, and to improve crash and structural performances, at affordable costs for high volume production. These projects, the UltraLight Steel Auto Body (ULSAB), the UltraLight Steel Auto Closures (ULSAC), Ultralight Steel Auto Suspensions (ULSAS), the UltraLight Steel Auto Body – Advanced Vehicle Concepts (ULSAB-AVC) and FutureSteelVehicle have all helped considerably in adding to the steel industry’s automotive customers’ effective use of steel in building safe vehicles. These concepts, designed by Porsche Engineering Services, Inc. (PES) and Lotus Engineering (ULSAS) took a quantum leap in steel design to produce safe vehicles that can be built affordably, and are more fuel efficient.
Nearly all vehicles on the road today are made of steel because it is the easiest and best material for designing safe vehicles. Steel is a material with a unique, inherent capacity to absorb an impact, and thus to diffuse crash energy. Steel can be engineered to collapse like an accordion. Most cars on the road today have a steel front end that performs like this. Steel also has the ability to become harder when it’s crushed, which means it will become stronger on impact, allowing the steel to absorb more energy. Most production vehicles launched to the market today use new generation, advanced high-strength steel and technologies, which will make a car not only safe, but also stronger and more fuel efficient.
One thing is certain: vehicle crashes happen. We all hope that we won’t ever be in one, accidents do happen. The best preparation to avoid serious injury is to demand and drive the safest vehicles designed with the best material for crash protection–advaned high-strength steel.
Automobiles are the most recycled consumer product, and steel is the most recycled automotive material. Each year the steel industry recycles more than 14 million tons of steel from end-of-life vehicles. This is equivalent to nearly 8.5 million new automobiles. The steel recycling rate for automobiles is near 100 percent annually. This recycling record, along with developing lighter, stronger steels continues to yield environmental benefits which are sustainable.
Even while these accomplishments are impressive, the steel industry continues to work to develop new, advanced steel products and applications that will yield even greater energy benefits to manufacturers and their customers. Advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) are strong, lighter, and produced with light life cycle impact, helping automakers decrease a vehicle’s life-long carbon footprint.
New steels benefit vehicles in three vital ways during a vehicle’s life: manufacturing, driving, and end-of-life recycling. Consequently, they are the fastest-growing material in new vehicles today. The use of AHSS reduces a vehicle’s structural weight by as much as 25 percent and can cut total life cycle CO2 emissions by up to 15 percent more than any other automotive material.
And because it is fully recyclable, steel used in today’s cars can help automakers reduce the carbon footprint of tomorrow’s vehicles, as well.
New vehicle regulations are an important step in moving towards a cleaner economy. However, future proposals for more aggressive standards fail to recognize the importance of all phases of a vehicle’s life, called The Life Cycle Assessment approach, or LCA, in minimizing a vehicle’s GHG emissions. LCA looks at the total greenhouse gas emissions from all phases of a vehicle’s life – from its manufacture through its disposal – and can help automakers make better decisions in the selection of materials for future cars and trucks.
The LCA process shows that steel, which currently makes up about 55 percent of the average U.S. vehicle, generates fewer emissions than other automotive body materials and therefore steel-intensive automobiles will continue to be the lowest emitting vehicles on the road.
When one considers the total vehicle life cycle, steel is the most environmentally effective choice for automakers due to its relatively low energy and emissions during the manufacturing phase, significant mass reduction during the driving phase, and 100 percent recyclability at the end of the vehicle’s life. With continued steel and technology developments, greater efficiencies will be realized.