BAOSTEEL Australia


Project ID: BA12014

Project Title: Competitive 6xxx series Aluminium automotive body panels with improved formability

Investigators: 
  • Prof Chris Davies, Monash University
  • Prof Nick Birbilis, Monash University
  • Professor Jian-Feng Nie, Monash University

The global emissions-driven push for automobile weight reduction opens up opportunities for lightweight aluminium alloy automotive body panels. However, the market share of aluminium alloys remains low because they tend to have higher cost and poorer formability than steels. In collaboration with Baosteel this project will address the formability shortcomings of 6xxx series alloys through improvements in cold rolling, heat treatment and alloy composition. Through modelling and experiment the project will deliver a thorough understanding of 6xxx alloy sheet formability and propose novel 6xxx series alloy/process combinations giving formability better than benchmark alloys with no degradation of bake hardening properties.