Lightweight materials

A direct way to reduce weight is to replace currently used materials (all grades of steel) with lightweight equivalents like aluminium or composite materials.

Potential applications:

• Aluminium reservoir tube assembly (including spring seat and other vehicle interfaces) for twintube struts (first production implementation in 1997)
• Aluminium tube for monotube dampers

Even greater weight saving may be achieved with composite materials. For structural elements, lower mechanical properties may be offset by complex plastic-molded geometry. Strength and stiffness is built through structural design instead of material properties.

Available composite material applications:

• Strut spring seat (first production implementation in 2013)
• Internal rebound spring (first production implementation in 2002)