Lightweight Structural Materials in Open Access: Latest Trends

Abstract

The aeronautical and automotive industries have, as an essential objective, the energy efficiency optimization of aircraft and cars, while maintaining stringent functional requirements. One working line focuses on the use of lightweight structural materials to replace conventional materials. For this reason, it is considered enlightening to carry out an analysis of the literature published over the last 20 years through Open Access literature. For this purpose, a systematic methodology is applied to minimize the possible risks of bias in literature selection and analysis. Web of Science is used as a search engine. The final selection comprises the 30 articles with the highest average numbers of citations per year published from 2015 to 2020 and the 7 articles published from the period of 2000-2014. Overall, the selection is composed of 37 Open Access articles with 2482 total citations and an average of 67.1 citations per article/year published, and includes Q1 (62%) and Q2 (8%) articles and proceeding papers (30%). The study seeks to inform about the current trends in materials and processes in lightweight structural materials for aeronautical and automotive applications with a sustainable perspective. All the information collected is summarized in tables to facilitate searches and interpretation by interested researchers.

Keywords: aerospace; automotive; lightweight; multi-material; polymer; sustainable.

Figure 1

(a) Trend according to the number of studies on lightweight materials applied to the aeronautical and automotive sectors; (b) Defined strategy for literature search.

Figure 2

Schematic diagram of rolling and welding equipment [21].

Figure 3

Definition of damage criteria during CFRP drilling [67].

Figure 4

(a). Delamination phenomena depicting different modes during a-peel-up and b-push-out type [68]; (b) Rotational speed influence on thrust forces and holes number [69].

Figure 5

Cross-sectional view of the machined sample for optimum solution [17].

Figure 6

Illustration of rotary ultrasonic machining [65].

Figure 7

Effect of flank wear on point angle [29].

Figure 8

(a) Room temperature compression of specimens extruded at 80 and 400 °C with specimens before and after compression test [70]; (b) Stress amplitude versus number of cycles to failure for the peened and unpeened samples [71].

Figure 9

SPR joint quality and some faults [59].

Figure 10

Residual stress profile displaying the most relevant parameters: Max CRS—maximum amount of CRS; Depth of max CRS—depth at which the maximum CRS is observed; Depth of CRS—depth at which a transition from CRS to tensile residual stress (TRS) occurs [33].