snippets from various sources:
DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford is unveiling a new F-150 with a body built almost entirely out of aluminum.
Cab, hood, tailgate, floor, fenders, doors, front end, pickup box, and numerous other parts.
The lighter material shaves as much as 700 pounds off the 5,000-pound truck, a revolutionary change for a vehicle known
for its heft and an industry still heavily reliant on steel.
And it sprang from a challenge by Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally to move beyond the traditional design for a full-size pickup.
Ninety-seven per cent of the body of the 2015 F-150 is aluminum, the most extensive use of aluminum ever in a truck.
And this isn’t just any truck. F-Series trucks – which include the F-150 and heavier duty models like the F-250
– have been the bestselling vehicles in the US for the last 32 years; last year, Ford sold an F-Series every 41 seconds.
Improvements in aluminum are also driving the change. Three years ago, for example, Alcoa Inc.
– one of Ford’s suppliers for the F-150 – figured out a way to pretreat aluminum so it would be more durable when parts
are bonded together. Carmakers can now use three or four rivets to piece together parts that would have needed 10 rivets before,
Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery said.
Some steel remains on the truck. The frame beneath it is built primarily of high-strength steel,
which Ford says will make it tougher and stiffer than the current frame.
There’s also steel in the front dashboard, because Ford thought steel was better at dampening nose from the engine.
In all, a four-door F-150 has 660 pounds of aluminum, or nearly double the average use of aluminum per vehicle used now,
according to Drive Aluminum, an aluminum industry web site.
Sophisticated computer modeling techniques that the giant automaker learned from Aston Martin and Jaguar when it
owned them from the 1990s to 2007. Without those techniques, Ford wouldn’t have been able to build the new truck within a normal
three- or four-year design cycle.
“We were able to develop CAE (computer-aided engineering) tools so we could have quick engineering analysis that allowed us to study
the feasibility as fast as the design changes.”
Could you have done this 10 years ago?’” Pete Reyes, chief engineer F-150, told Design News.
“And my answer is: ‘Absolutely, but it would have taken us eight years to finish it.’”
“We were able to develop CAE (computer-aided engineering) tools so we could have quick engineering analysis that allowed us to study
the feasibility as fast as the design changes.”
....
There are multiple new requirements for dealerships and repair facilities that work on aluminum bodies. However,
Ford is making some concessions to dealerships by waiving a the requirement for a completely separate "clean room"
and just requiring a curtained-off work area for the aluminum body.
It's important to keep aluminum and steel separated to prevent possible galvanic corrosion.
Ford is requiring the purchase of a specialized vacuum to remove aluminum dust from shop floors
Eurovac, a small manufacturer of specialized vacuum and air extractors based in Concord, Ontario expects to grow substantially in the years
ahead. Eurovac calls the new F-150 "the biggest thing in the history of our company."
.....
If Ford continues to sell three-quarters of a million F-Series pickups with body panels, analysts say that would represent the largest
single use of aluminum other than the collective use by the military, or at 700 lbs per vehicle and 2013 sales,
that’s 242,400 metric tons of auto-grade aluminum.
......
The complicated switch to aluminum from steel in the F-150's body contributes to IHS Automotive's estimate that Ford will need to
take about six weeks of downtime at each of its truck plants to retool and swap out robots and machinery.
