Monthly Archives: February 2013

Honda has developed a production manufacturing process that lets them join steel to aluminum skin panels. The first application of this will be on the 2014 Acura RLX, which will have an aluminum door skin joined to a steel door … Continue reading →

Through my website, someone asked about the deformation modes in sheet metal forming. My response: The three deformation modes in three-dimensional forming are draw, plane strain, and stretch. These can be visualized by imagining a circle of known diameter etched … Continue reading →

Sales of the 2013 Dodge Dart were lower than initially projected in 2012 because only manual transmissions were available at launch, with a six-speed automatic sourced from Hyundai serving as a stopgap until a promised nine-speed automatic is available. In … Continue reading →

Bloomberg article highlights: * Morgan Stanley predicts a 29 percent gain in aluminum prices by 2018. * At current aluminum prices, which are more than a third below 2008 highs, at least 30 percent of aluminum companies aren’t making money. … Continue reading →

Global brewing company SABMiller has developed a bottle crown that reduces the crown thickness to 0.17mm from a typical thickness of 0.22mm to 0.24mm. This thickness change of 50 microns reduces the standard crown weight from 2.38g to 2.14g, corresponding … Continue reading →

Through my website, someone from a manufacturing company asked how to calculate thinning in a sheet metal part made from 2mm thick high strength steel. My response: First, I assume the nominal or expected thickness is 2mm. But this is … Continue reading →