Abstract
As automobile manufactures today push the envelope of light weighting technologies, so do they impart opportunities for the development of new thermal processing technologies. In an era of light weighting technology advancement, we see a common trend where steel components are being replaced with lighter weight aluminum components. We see automotive manufactures expanding the use of lightweight technologies and exploiting the use of aluminum materials in high volume general purpose vehicles where in the past these lightweight technologies were relegated to high performance or luxury vehicles. Traditionally we see aluminum being incorporated in various forms and configurations such as castings for powertrains and suspensions and sheet and extruded shapes for the body externals and bumper structures. Today we see lightweight materials being incorporated into high volume automotive platforms in the form of thin walled structural node castings and body structure extrusion stampings.
