Avaliação das ligas da série 6000 para aplicação em chassi de veículos elétricos

Abstract

The emergence and growth of new social concepts leads the industries to make a series of changes to adapt with new user profiles, safety requirements, and environmental awareness. The use of fossil fuels is increasingly seen as a threat to the environment because it is a non-renewable energy source and also because of the emission of pollutants through the burning of these fuels. With this, the market for electric vehicles is growing, seen as the best alternative to replace internal combustion-powered vehicles. Recent developments in electric vehicles have allowed them to reach a level of performance, comfort, and safety that enables them to compete with traditional vehicles. The biggest difficulty for electric vehicle manufacturers is related to autonomy and energy efficiency. Therefore, several studies are directed towards increasing the autonomy of these vehicles, aiming at an increase in the efficiency of the electric motors and components, and weight reduction of structural components. Aluminum alloys are increasingly being chosen for the production of structural elements, due to their low density and good mechanical and corrosion properties. The 6000 series alloys are often used in chassis and bodywork. In view of this, this work proposes a comparison of 6000 series alloys, under T4 and T6 heat treatment conditions, by means of thermodynamic (using Thermo-Calc® software) and property simulations (using Granta/Edupack) in order to select the best alloys taking into account application properties, processability, and environmental impact. In this comparison it was observed that, in general, the T6-heat treated alloys present better results in terms of mechanical properties, but, on the other hand, they have more impact on the environment. As such, the 6010-T6 alloy was classified as the best in terms of performance, the 6061-T4 alloy the best in terms of processability, and the 6009-T4 alloy presented the lowest environmental impact. Taking a more general view, the 6111-T4 alloy was highlighted as the alloy showing the best performance/processability/ environmental impact balance.