CO2-HyChain

At around 160 million tons, road traffic is responsible for around 20% of total CO2 emissions in Germany. One way of lowering this figure is to reduce vehicle weight through functional lightweight construction. The "CO2-HyChain" research project is intended to drive forward research into innovative lightweight designs and further develop existing solutions for the production of high-strength aluminum and hybrid aluminum-steel tailor-welded blanks. The objective is to significantly reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars.

In a consortium of three institutes of the University of Stuttgart and 9 industrial partners, the project "CO2-HyChain" has been successfully launched under the leadership of the Materialprüfungsanstalt Universität Stuttgart (MPA). With a financial volume of 5.7 million euros and a duration of three years, this is the largest project to date funded by the technology transfer program Initiative Leichtbau (BMWi).

As part of the research project, solutions developed at the MPA under laboratory conditions for joining sheet metal blanks made of aluminum and steel by friction stir welding are being further developed, scaled up and transferred to industrial practice in an interdisciplinary research network.

By joining aluminum and steel, the positive properties of the two materials, such as the high strength of steel and the low weight of aluminum, can be combined in a positive way. This allows the weight of vehicle bodies to be reduced in the double-digit percentage range, resulting in significant fuel, electricity and CO2 savings.