KTH’s technical expertise is in the design, development, and production of automotive components worldwide. Efforts have long been underway, and are a priority for all automakers, to reduce vehicle weight, to improve automotive performance, and to make the vehicle “environmentally-friendly”.
Automotive bodies consist of relatively easily-crushable parts and also tougher parts. The crushable parts help dissipate forces over a wider area and absorb the impact of a collision to assist in the passengers’ crash survival. The tougher and more resilient parts are hard to deform, which provides sufficient strength to protect all passengers against injury.
KTH has aggressively optimized high-strength sheets into one cohesive body that embeds: contradictory functions, a lighter weight, and higher collision “toughness.” High-strength sheets require higher forming and joining technologies and, compared to regular materials, they are a complex material to work with. KTH has established a technology for the high-precision, mass production of ultra-high strength materials that are even more difficult to form. To meticulously address the need for lighter vehicle weight we strategically locate lightweight materials, in appropriate positions, in a vehicle body using “Tailor Welded Blank” technology. The result is a single, blank sheet created from materials consisting of different properties and thicknesses by laser welding. The optimized blank is then stamped into a part.
For the safety of occupants during a crash, an automotive body is constructed with an area that will crumple to absorb the impact and is rigid enough to protect the survival space. To maintain and enhance this margin of safety, KTH utilizes the Tailored Blank Welding technology which includes complex material placement of the automotive framework, verified by various simulations in the designing phase and maintained in the stamping phase.