EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

Recent work in the field of magnesium alloy development for sheets has successfully been targeted at improving sheet formability. On the basis of such alloys, a lightweight Passat decklid prototype was fully developed and tested and Volkswagen, highlighting the benefits of such novel sheet alloys with regards to reducing their processing complexity in an automotive production context. The individual steps of this project will be presented, bridging targeted alloy adjustments to suit the manufacturing process, overall component design and its testing. The evaluation of the project showed that major advances could be made in the forming of components and their joining resulting in a satisfactory static and dynamic mechanical performance, while the corrosion resistance of the prototype was weakened by surface iron contamination during the manufacturing process. Such project evaluation provides the basis to derive further material and process design criteria for prospective magnesium sheets.