Shear Rolling of Magnesium Sheet for Automotive, Defense, and Energy Applications

Technical Report · Tue Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1098176· OSTI ID:1098176

Muralidharan, Govindarajan ^[1]; Muth, Thomas R. ^[1]; Peter, William H. ^[1]; Watkins, Thomas R. ^[1]; Randman, David ^[2]; Davis, Bruce ^[2]; Alderman, Martyn ^[2]; Romanoski, Chris ^[3]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Magnesium Elektron North America, Flemington, NJ (United States)
3. FATA Hunter, Buttrio (Italy)

Magnesium is the lightest structural metal known: at approximately 1/5 the density of steel, 1/2 the density of titanium and 2/3 the density of aluminum. Hence magnesium alloys represent potential weight savings across the entire transportation industry. The major hurdle to the deployment of magnesium products by the transportation industry is the price barrier that exists due to the current high cost of producing magnesium alloy sheet on a volume basis. Proven technology (e.g., twin roll sheet casting and hot reversing coil mill technology) exists which could lower the cost of magnesium alloy sheet by as much as 50%, but needs to be demonstrated and implemented in high volume production to achieve benefits. In addition, the predominant basal texture (alignment of basal planes parallel to the sheet surface) that exists in magnesium alloy sheet results in poor low temperature formability resulting in added fabrication costs. Cost reduction achieved through energy efficiency, coupled with even greater energy savings by deployment of this “lightest of metals”, will help the United States achieve its goal to eliminate dependence on foreign fossil fuel. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Magnesium Elektron North America (MENA), and FATA Hunter collaborated on this project to develop shear rolling technology of magnesium sheet to enable improvement of the formability of magnesium sheet while addressing cost and lower energy consumption.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1098176
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM--2012/541; ED1904032; RAED001
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English