Magnesium Process and Alloy Development for Applications in the Automotive Industry

While cast magnesium components have been extensively used in the automotive industry, only niche applications are known to exist for magnesium sheets to this date. This is believed to originate from limitations in the material property spectrum covered by existing alloys. By utilising the twin-roll casting technique, novel Mg–Zn–Ca–Zr (ZXK) alloy sheets can be developed with improved formability as a result of a texture weakening effect. More importantly, it can be shown that these new alloy sheets can be processed at industrial scale. Based on the magnesium-specific design of a Volkswagen Passat decklid, the advantages of these new highly formable sheets in an automotive production environment can be evaluated.