Papers by Author: Joseph A. Carpenter

Abstract: The United States of America’s (USA’s) transportation system is strongly dependent on petroleum as an energy source. Petroleum is used to satisfy 95 percent of the USA’s transportation energy needs, consuming two-thirds of all the petroleum used in the USA. Since roughly 60 percent of the petroleum is imported, the implications of this dependency on energy security are readily apparent. Since 2002, the United States Department of Energy (USDOE) and the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) have worked cooperatively through the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership (FC&FP) to fund high-risk, high-payoff research and development (R&D) into advanced automotive technologies with the potential for lowering this dependence. The FC&FP succeeded and built upon the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) initiative that ran from 1993 to 2001. The long-term transition of vehicles from gasoline to non-petroleum energy sources is viewed as critical in lowering the dependence of the USA economy on foreign oil, and in reducing the environmental impact of the personal transportation sector. The FC&FP supports research on technologies with the potential for energy-efficiency and renewable energy benefits, such as new engine concepts, lightweight materials, alternate non-petroleum based fuels, and hybrid propulsion components. This paper will highlight the research in the lightweight metals portion of the FC&FP. Cooperative R&D projects will be discussed which focus on processing and manufacturing technologies such as casting of magnesium (Mg) and aluminium (Al) alloy components, advanced forming techniques for Al sheet, and warm-forming of Mg sheet. The overall objective of these efforts is not only to demonstrate new technologies, but to reduce the cost of manufacturing lightweight materials and enable implementation of the technologies in high-volume automotive applications.

Abstract: Expanding world economic prosperity and probable peaking of conventional petroleum production in the coming decades requires efforts to increase the efficiency of, and the development of alternatives to, petroleum-based fuels used in automotive transportation. North America has been aggressively pursuing both approaches for over ten years. Mainly as a result of lower prices due to global sourcing, magnesium has recently emerged as a serious candidate for lightweighting, and thus increasing the fuel efficiency of, automotive transportation. Automotive vehicles produced in North America currently use more Mg than vehicles produced elsewhere in the world, but the amounts per vehicle are very small in comparison to other materials such as steel, aluminum and plastics. The reasons, besides price, are primarily a less-developed state of technology for Mg in automotive transportation applications and lack of familiarity by the vehicle manufacturers with the material. This paper reviews some publicly-known, recent, present and future North American research and development activities in Mg for automotive applications.

Abstract: The USA’s transportation system is nearly completely dependent on petroleum. Petroleum is used to satisfy 95 percent of America’s transportation energy needs, consuming two-thirds of all the petroleum used. Since roughly 55 percent of petroleum is imported from abroad, the implications of this dependency on USA’s energy security are readily apparent. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) announced in January 2002 a new cooperative research effort known as the FreedomCAR Partnership to fund high-risk, high-payoff research into advanced automotive technologies with the potential for dramatically lowering this dependence. The new partnership replaced and built upon the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) that ran from 1993 to 2001 [1]. In January 2003, the energy-supply industry joined the FreedomCAR Partnership forming the FreedomCAR and Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (FC&HFI) to develop the technologies needed for the mass production of fuel-cell vehicles using hydrogen as fuel and the infrastructure needed to deliver the hydrogen to the consumer. The goal is to enable the automotive and energy-supply industries to make commercialization decisions in 2015 on largescale introduction of such vehicles and on developing the infrastructure beginning in 2020. The long-term transition of vehicles from gasoline to hydrogen is viewed as critical in lowering the dependence of the U.S. economy on foreign oil, and in reducing the environmental impact of the personal transportation sector. In addition to the longer-term work on fuel cells and hydrogen infrastructure, the FC&HFI conducts research on technologies with the potential for shorter-term energy efficiency and environmental benefits, such as new engine concepts, lightweight materials, and hybrid propulsion components. Magnesium is one of several lightweight materials being researched. This paper discusses the FC&HFI and its work on magnesium.