Automotive
Wire in the car
20. September 2017
Wire in the car
3 minutes spent reading
Volkmar Held
As a freelance writer, Volkmar Held reports for voestalpine on topics that move people. The content of his stories ranges from archaeometallurgy to future technologies.
Every car contains up to 120 kg of wire end products. voestalpine Wire Technology GmbH delivers pre-material for these key components.
Wire is in every car. Every car contains 80 to 120 kg of high-tech wire end products, depending on the vehicle class. The applications for wire have long surpassed flexible electrical connections and brake cables. Now, wire demonstrates its special capabilities as a pre-product for numerous applications, such as highly stressed massive cold extrusion steel parts for transmissions, axles, and steering systems.
1,200 screws per car
According to fka, up to 1,200 screws are used to build a mid-class car, which equates to around 25 kg of screws, nuts, and washers.
The manufacturers’ safety standards place high demands on these parts and the pre-material—as everyone at voestalpine Wire Technology GmbH knows. That is why when wires are produced for engine bolts in the new St. Peter-Freienstein plant, the world’s most modern wire rolling mill plant, it is necessary to ensure:
- Fatigue strength at operating temperatures of 100 to 300°C
- High ductility
- Low edge decarbonization
- High uniformity and no faults
High safety requirements
The use of wire in screw production by no means exploits the full versatility of wires from voestalpine Wire Technology GmbH. Wire components are often used in safety systems, steering system, springs, roll bearings, and ball bearings. What they all have in common is that they have to meet high requirements. Ultimately, it is about the safety of drivers and passengers on the road. That is why voestalpine metallurgy and wire specialists work together to ensure that the wires for the automotive industry have a highly uniform, fine-grained microstructure that is free of cracks and uneven concentrations of alloying elements.
Countless applications
The high-quality wires from voestalpine Wire Technology GmbH are used in applications such as
- Torsion bars in belt force limiters for safety belts
- Ball studs in car steering systems
- Axle springs, vibration dampening springs, and clutch springs in the chassis
- Roll bearings and ball bearings in the engine, chassis, transmission, and more
Did you know…
that cold formed wire is even used in turbochargers where it is subjected to enormous stresses: up to 340,000 rotations per minute for an entire (engine) lifetime. Premium car manufacturers were so impressed with the wire pre-product and the technological expertise of voestalpine Wire Technology GmbH that they changed their production processes for manufacturing turboshafts from milling and turning to cold forming.
Volkmar Held