(July 17, 2015) Federal
regulations are challenging automakers to wring as many miles as possible from
every drop of fuel, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to make lighter
vehicles. Last year, one of the world’s leading auto industry suppliers
enlisted a Senior Design team at Michigan Technological University to help it
do just that.
For its efforts, the team earned first place in the Senior
Design category at the University’s Design Expo 2015.
Industry giant Yazaki has been considering a switch from
copper to aluminum in its wiring harnesses. A changeover could slash materials
costs and cut the harnesses’ weight by 50 percent, but that’s only half the
story.
“Aluminum has one-third the density of copper and similar
conductivity, but there’s the problem of corrosion,” said Stephen Kampe, chair
of materials science and engineering at Michigan Tech. “Copper has corrosion
problems as well, but the auto industry has been using copper since Henry Ford,
so everyone knows how to manage it.”
To learn more about managing aluminum, a Senior Design team
from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering focused on what might
happen in an automotive fuse box if the housing were to fail and salt spray
from wet roads splashed onto the wiring.
“The students did with aluminum what Yazaki does with
copper,” said Kampe, who advised the team. “They set up experiments to evaluate
the galvanic corrosion rate of aluminum with various plating materials.”
Tin turned out to be most promising, he said, adding, “and
that’s what Yazaki does, plate copper with tin to assist in soldering, so they
could look at assimilating aluminum into their existing process.” However, he
stressed that it was too early to draw any firm conclusions.
“People do these studies over years,” Kampe noted. “The team’s
biggest contribution was setting up a mechanism to evaluate the corrosion
behavior of aluminum.”
Partners at Yazaki North America were enthusiastic about the
team’s progress. “We hope to continue our relationship with Michigan Tech to
sponsor more senior projects,” said Matt Baker, senior engineer. “Yazaki gets
the chance to have research conducted on things we may not have time to test on
our own while providing the students a great learning opportunity. I look
forward to working with more students in the future.”
The team members for the project, “Aluminum Corrosion
Study—Automotive Electrical Systems,” were Annie LeSage, Alexandra Glover, Kyle
Myszka and Jacob Gerdt.