ThyssenKrupp Magazin
ThyssenKrupp Magazin
ThyssenKrupp Magazin
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The car of<br />
the future will<br />
be an affair for<br />
lightweights<br />
<strong>ThyssenKrupp</strong> Steel’s NewSteelBody<br />
is a model of the finest steel materials<br />
By Rüdiger Abele | Photos <strong>ThyssenKrupp</strong> Steel<br />
The dynamic handling of<br />
the production material steel<br />
makes the NewSteelBody<br />
so light and stable. The body<br />
side members at the front, for<br />
example, are pressed into shape<br />
by hydroforming and contain<br />
steels of different strengths.<br />
TK <strong>Magazin</strong>e | 1 | 2004 |<br />
NEWSTEELBODY 55<br />
Stability and lightness, two important goals in the construction of<br />
modern car bodies, demand modern materials that keep their<br />
strength while lending themselves especially well to being formed<br />
into useful new shapes. <strong>ThyssenKrupp</strong> Steel can offer a number of such<br />
materials.<br />
<strong>ThyssenKrupp</strong> Steel caused a sensation at the 2003 edition of the<br />
world’s biggest car show, the IAA in Frankfurt, with the introduction of<br />
a minivan body in white that was just as stable as the one in the reference<br />
model – the popular Opel Zafira – but 24 percent lighter and only<br />
a shade more expensive.<br />
It wasn’t only the engineers who were excited about the “New-<br />
SteelBody,” as the project is known: When it comes to market, anyone<br />
buying a vehicle using this new technology will enjoy significant savings<br />
in fuel costs over the life of his or her car.<br />
HIGH-STRENGTH STEEL FROM MODERN FABRICATION<br />
“With the NewSteelBody, we wanted to show what is possible today,”<br />
explains Dr. Markus Weber, an engineer and head of the Auto Division<br />
of <strong>ThyssenKrupp</strong> Steel in Duisburg. He stresses that “<strong>ThyssenKrupp</strong><br />
Steel isn’t getting into car making,” but that the NewSteelBody represents<br />
an invitation by the company to car makers to notice – and take<br />
more advantage of – the company’s skills as a supplier, “Because hardly<br />
anybody knows more about steel than we do.”<br />
An important part of the NewSteelBody concept was to produce it<br />
with materials and technologies already on hand. It is a mix of different<br />
ideas: high-strength steel that can be worked under the most modern<br />
fabricating technology when necessary or, when it suffices, with more<br />
conventional methods.<br />
“This intelligent mixture makes the NewSteelBody so light at a<br />
very reasonable cost,” says the project manager, Bernhard Osburg,<br />
adding that the NewSteelBody costs only 2 percent more than conven-
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