New lightweight research for magnesium and aluminium alloys

A Toronto professor has been recognized at the forefront of a drive that promises to bring lighter, greener materials to the road.

Comondore (Ravi) Ravindran, an industrial engineering professor at Ryerson University, was one of only 11 Canadians elected recently as a fellow of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his pioneering work in the study of aluminium and especially magnesium alloys.

The automotive universe has started a shift from iron and steel to aluminium engine and suspension components as stringent fuel consumption regulations loom in both Europe and North America. Coupled with a rapidly evolving eco-consciousness of car consumers worldwide, there is a greater focus towards more fuel-efficient products. But magnesium is an even lighter metal than aluminium and is already in use in some high-end sports cars and some high-mileage concepts.

Ravindran's research has focused on how to solve some of the traditional challenges of magnesium alloys, such as cost and strength, while concocting new alloys and die-casting methods to make these lighter and stronger materials more feasible for use in automobiles and airplanes.

"We develop casting processes for aluminium and magnesium alloy components for the transportation sector with a focus on energy, emissions, recyclability and environment," says Ravindran. "Stronger, lighter and greener materials result in the more efficient design, production and operation of vehicles and aircraft."

Ravindran founded the first university-based and interdisciplinary applied research for lost foam (near-net-shape) casting of aluminium alloys and technology transfer in Canada, in a facility on Ryerson's downtown campus.

"We have a lot of iron and steel castings in the car," even now, he says, pointing out how far the auto industry still has to go in terms of possible weight reductions and attendant efficiency increases. "The density of steel drops 65 per cent when you go to aluminium, and another 35 per cent when you go to magnesium."

This results in magnesium offering an almost 80 per cent reduction in weight over steel, according to Ravindran's research, but at a cost of about twice that of aluminium. Limiting this cost disadvantage, as well as increasing the real-world applicability of magnesium's advantages into less expensive aluminium alloys, is what saw him elected into AAAS, and brought researchers from MIT and all over Europe to Ryerson's Centre for Near-net-shape Processing of Materials (CNPM).

The lab has recently earned recognition for Ryerson from the Magnesium Division of the American Foundry Society, which presented the university with its Outstanding Organization Award.

"A PhD who's a trained machinist, that's Ryerson," said Ravindran, about how his doctoral and undergraduate students benefit from his applied research. "You have to be very good at relating the real world into the classroom."

Ravindran says such super lightweight components are beginning to appear on concept cars like Volkswagen's One-Litre diesel-hybrid, while magnesium parts have already appeared on production cars such as the Porsche 911 and Volkswagen's European Lupo subcompact. But it will still be years before the technology is commonplace.

"I look at about 10-12 years before it becomes mainstream," says Ravindran.