Automotive Industry Trends
Steel - Environmentally Friendly Material
 |
| Issue Table of Contents |
|
|
Virtually every vehicle that is taken off the road today is recycled to some degree. This is due to the economic value of its steel and iron content and the fact that steel is the most environmentally friendly material economically available to the auto industry today. Advances in the use of steel are a primary focus of the Automotive Applications Committee (AAC), a subcommittee of the Market Development Committee of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
The vast majority of production cars, sport utility vehicles and light trucks (along with a profusion of concept vehicles) use steel as their primary material for structures, body panels, closures, bumpers and wheels. In spite of aggressive steps by competing materials and driven by vehicle makers' need to make more environmentally benign vehicles, the steel industry continues to meet its customers' requirements. By meeting these needs, steel has maintained its dominant position as the material of choice for vital applications.
According to AISI:
- Steel has been able to sustain its 55 percent share of average vehicle weight because the steel industry has continually improved the performance of its material - severely limiting opportunities for competing materials to gain much at steel's expense.
- During the past two decades, automakers' use of high strength and ultra high strength steel sheet has outpaced the growth rate of aluminum by 13 percent, making it the fastest growing automotive lightweight material.
- Steel is the world's most recycled metal. It is the chief reason for the high recycling rate for out-of-service automobiles. Steel is easy and inexpensive to recycle as it uses magnetic separation and requires no sorting by alloy in advance.
- Steel sheet is an unsurpassed material for producing crashworthy vehicles and offers engineers the greatest design flexibility for packaging engines, passengers and cargo.
- The steel industry continues to help automakers produce vehicles that reduce emissions of harmful greenhouse gases, including CO2.
Over the past several years, the steel industry has engaged in a series of research initiatives to demonstrate and communicate the capabilities of steel to meet society's demand for safe, affordable and environmentally responsible vehicles for the 21st century. Recent projects have helped them accomplish the following:
- Discharge of air and water pollutants has been reduced by over 90 percent in the past 25 years.
- Over 95 percent of the water used for making steel is recycled.
- Energy consumption in steel-making has been cut by 45 percent since 1975, significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions that can contribute to global warming.
- Electrical steels produced with specialized electromagnetic properties help produce significant energy savings in power transformers.
- Alloy steels designed to operate at very high temperatures allow capture and re-use of waste heat in power plants, providing a substantial increase in electricity production.
- Improved steel-making technology has resulted in lighter, stronger steels, which means that less steel must be used for a given task, further saving energy and resources.
- Stainless steel exhaust systems have been developed that typically last the life of a vehicle.
AISI is a non-profit association of North American companies engaged in the iron and steel industry. The Institute comprises 46 member companies, including integrated and electric furnace steel-makers, and 175 associate and affiliate members who are suppliers to or customers of the steel industry. AISI is dedicated to the continued exploration of the uses of steel through its innovative programs and partnerships. AISI and it's subcommittees will continue to conduct research and put projects in place that focus on the environmentally conscience advancement of the use of steel in the highly competitive automotive market.
AISI and Global Engineering Documents have formed an agreement, effective April 2001, for worldwide single copy distribution of both hardcopy and electronic documents. Visit Global's Web site www.global.ihs.com or call today 800-854-7179 to order your AISI standards.