Media

HKU Mechanical Engineering research team achieves breakthrough in super lightweight automobile steels for next generation low emission automobiles

13 May 2015

Automobiles can be made more environmentally friendly with better efficiency in fuel consumption and lower carbon emissions. One of the key solutions lies in the materials used. Car bodies made of ultrahigh strength steels are thinner and therefore lighter in weight but can still offer excellent crash performance and passenger protection. Lighter cars also cause less carbon emissions.

The last breakthrough in automobile steels, which are used in vehicles today including those top model green vehicles in the market, was made by scientists some ten years ago.

A research team led by Dr. Huang Mingxin at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has developed a new generation of ultrahigh strength steels. The innovation has met, 10 years in advance, the future technical targets for automobile materials proposed by the US Department of Energy and General Motors.

Dr Huang’s team is among the first groups in the world to have achieved such a breakthrough in automobile materials. With the new technology, future automobiles can be made 30% lighter in weight, while maintaining the same, if not higher, safety level. The steels developed by the HKU team can be used for developing the next generation environmental friendly vehicles with lower carbon emissions. 

The project was funded by the HKSAR Innovation and Technology Fund, Baosteel in Mainland China and General Motors. The team is in the process of applying a US patent for the new technology.

Dr Huang will meet the media to introduce the new steels. Details are as below:
Date: May 14, 2015 (Thursday)
Time: 10:30am
Venue: Room HW-737, 7/F, Haking Wong Building, HKU

Please kindly arrange to publish the story on May 18, 2015 (Monday)

For media enquiries please contact Miss Nancy Cheung, Faculty of Engineering, HKU (Tel: 2219 4668 / E-mail: nccheung@hku.hk) or Ms Melanie Wan, Communications and Public Affairs Office, HKU (Tel: 2859 2600 / Email: melwkwan@hku.hk).