Designing a new sustainable approach to the change for lightweight materials in structural components used in truck industry

This work intends to create a novel procedure to help select and change the materials used for structural components of commercial vehicles, being certainly useful to alert and aid designers in updating their preexisting designs. Due to the complex geometry of the components utilized on cars, trucks and similar vehicles and regarding the strength requirements usually demanded by customers, casting processes assume a relevant status when considering the selection of the material/process combo to be used. Thus, a flow diagram was created containing relevant questions and answer paths, allowing the designer to easily re-think about the materials currently in use and bring to the discussion new materials and manufacturing processes. By introducing lightweight components in a more efficient way through well-selected materials alongside with contemplation of the manufacturing processes to be used, design engineers simultaneously enhance weight reduction; promote time savings, decrease energy consumption and achieve emission gains. As a case study, this work presents lightweight ferrous cast materials as a good weight reducing alternatives, as well as the procedure for materials selection for heavy-duty structural components.