The 7th Automotive Lightweight Materials Joining, Forming And Manufacturing Innovation 2020 Summit, part of the GALM series of events will be held on March 25-26 in Detroit, Michigan.
The two-day event is an OEM-led initiative driven by the latest advancements in manufacturing techniques, joining methods, and forming processes for lightweight vehicles. The transition by OEMs to a new generation of electric vehicles (EVs) is placing increased emphasis on breakthrough technologies for lightweight vehicle manufacturing processes and integrated assembly.
Summit Agenda
The summit will directly addresses real-world practical and technical issues, including multi-material components and structures to optimize structural integrity; meet safety and noise, vibration, and harshness objectives; and achieve mass reduction to offset heavy batteries in EVs. Key topics to be covered include best practices in joining of new high strength steels and aluminum alloys, application optimization of adhesives and how to avoid quality control issues, solving real world challenges in joining metallic and non-metallic materials, new inspection technologies for high quality joints, and more. Exclusive to the 2020 Summit will be a top-level industry panel with senior decision-makers from global OEMs, discussing how to exploit digitalization of automotive manufacturing under industry 4.0 for smarter, more agile production, and improved profit margins.
Some of the presentations and panels that may be of interest to those in the aluminum industry include:
- OEM Panel: Multi-Material Manufacturing and Processes – What Can We Learn from Other Industries? — Automotive manufacturing innovation and sustainability requires not only OEM competitor benchmarking but also an understanding of the latest thinking in related industries. This opening panel includes case studies on key applications and how people are doing things differently in other industries that could benefit automotive industry processes and manufacturing. It will discuss manufacturing technology advances to achieve safer, higher density in battery packaging and integration into the structure. The discussion will led by Elie Tohme, director of Body Engineering, Research & Development, Strategic Planning for Karma Automotive.
- Innovative Approaches For Optimal Joining Of Aluminum And Steel To Overcome Process Defects – This presentation will look at adopting enhanced joining and manufacturing processes for integrating aluminum into mixed-material vehicle structures, enhanced solutions to joining new high strength steels and aluminum to overcome liquid metal embrittlement (LME), and optimizing the choice of new steels and aluminum alloys for high volume, lower cost vehicle production.
- Taking Ultrasonic Welding To The Next Level For Composite Structures And Battery Pack Manufacture – Presentation will explore opportunities to replace copper with aluminum for conductive applications in EVs, discuss robust high quality solutions for joining copper and aluminum in battery pack connectors and other electrical system applications, and look at ways to overcome the manufacturing and joining process quality challenges with ultrasonic welding.
- MultiMaterial-Welding: Next Generation Joining Technology For Lightweight and Multi-Material Designs – Led by Gregor Eckhard, CEO of MultiMaterial-Welding, and Matthias Mitter, category manager at Bossard, this presentation looks at adopting multi-material welding technologies to enable joining of different materials by creating a mechanical form-lock, addressing the challenges of vehicle manufacture from lightweight design to cost reduction in manufacturing processes, multi-material welding as a joining technology platform with multiple technologies, tools, and software solutions for real-time, non-destructive quality control based on machine learning.
- Working Towards Bonding A Complete Body Together With Structural Adhesives For Optimized Lightweighting With Minimal Use Of Fasteners And Riveting – Technologies towards the bonding of complete body structures. What is the future for bonding in the optimization of vehicle structures?
The summit is developed specifically for senior engineers and technical specialists focusing on vehicle body structures, lightweight advanced materials, process engineering, materials joining, and forming. The Automotive Lightweight Materials Joining, Forming And Manufacturing Innovation Summit is an ideal venue for local an international OEMs, Tier 1 manufacturers, materials suppliers, and equipment and service suppliers to come together, network, and create new innovation opportunities.