In the auto industry, doing more with less has never been as imperative to success as it is right now.
With EWI, you’ll be surprised by how much more you can achieve.
EWI develops and adapts production technologies that enable automakers and automotive suppliers to incorporate new materials, elevate product design, and increase manufacturing efficiency.
As automakers roll out lighter and more fuel-efficient vehicles, EWI continues extensive research and development of lightweight material applications – advanced high-strength steels, high-strength aluminums, magnesium, and composites – to help automakers meet their goals without compromising safety. In addition, our long-term collaborations with major OEMs and suppliers give us a unique advantage in several key areas:
- Vehicle electrification
- Lightweighting (dissimilar materials joining)
- Forming
- Additive manufacturing
- Advanced automation
- Nondestructive testing and evaluation
- Crash modeling and simulation studies
Identify.
Develop.
Implement.
WE MANUFACTURE INNOVATION.
By leveraging EWI’s process and materials expertise, automakers can efficiently speed up their critical advanced engineering programs. Whether you’re focused on doubling fuel economy by 2025 or developing approaches for welding aluminum, EWI can help your organization stay ahead of the competition.
Innovation that Drives Industry
EWI has served the auto industry as the leading North American authority on materials joining and applied material sciences since 1983. Our engineers work with OEMs, steel producers, aluminum producers, and Tier 1 automotive suppliers who make interior systems, power trains, chassis, electrical systems, and battery systems.
How EWI Helped Nanosteel Improve Weldability of A New Product
NanoSteel has a newly developed, advanced high-strength steel alloy, NXG™ 1200, designed to address the need for weight reduction and safety enhancement in the automotive market. Traditionally, automotive steel qualification tests focus on welding a specific steel to itself. The problem with this is that in today’s modern automotive structures, mixed materials are often welded together to optimize design. With our deep expertise in lightweighting and dissimilar materials joining, EWI helped evaluate the weldability of this new sheet steel both to itself and to other commonly used sheet steels in the automotive industry.
Learn more about the NanoSteel NXG™ 1200 Project.
Increasing Fuel Economy Through Lightweighting
In the drive for better fuel economy, manufacturers and suppliers make lightweighting a key focus. EWI engineers help OEMs and automotive suppliers meet rising demands for stronger and lighter materials, increased safety, lower fuel emissions, higher productivity, and reduced costs through manufacturing technology innovation.
See how EWI is developing Joining Technologies for Mainstream Vehicle Lightweighting.
How EWI Used Localized Thermal Processing to Improve Crash Worthiness
A Tier 1 automotive parts supplier needed to improve the crash-impact performance of seat structures. During crash testing, critical elements of the assembly were buckling, compromising overall performance and raising significant safety concerns. EWI’s experts guided localized thermal processing of these critical sheet-metal components, allowing the creation of specific microstructural architectures that enabled designed crash modes. Using these tailored microstructures, the next-generation lightweight components could be designed with a wider range of base materials while meeting crash-worthiness requirements.