09:00 Opening Remarks from the Chair

09:10 An Overview of Automotive Lightweight Projects and Challenges in China

• Sharing important statistics about China’s automotive lightweight challenges: targets and progresses
• Understanding what are the current technologies being explored to reduce vehicle weight
• Building a collaborated platform to boost the automotive lightweighting efforts
• Examining the role of alternative-fuel vehicles, i.e electric and hybrid vehicles

Wang ZhiWen
Operations Director
Automotive Industry Research Institute, Society of Automotive Engineers of China;
Deputy General Secretary
Automotive Lightweight Innovations & Technologies Strategic Alliance

09:50 Automotive Industry Forecast and Its Impact on Lightweighting: Opportunities and Challenges?

• An overview of China’s automotive industry: the trends on production and sales statistics
• Presenting the technology breakthrough for vehicle body and components development
• Where are the main challenges lying ahead of us?
• Why go lightweight: providing safer and more fuel-economical solutions

John Zeng
Director
J.D Power Asia Pacific Forecasting

10:30 Ligther and Safer Cars with Engineering PP Solutions by Borealis & Borouge

• Saving 5.5 kg by replacement of PC/PBT with PP for the exterior body panels of the Smart For2, excellent pedestrian safety
• Weight reduction of 50% with PP for the fender of the BMW X5 and X6, deformation of 80 mm without break
• At least 15% weight saving with PP compared to PA6-GF for the air-intake manifold of the VW MPI engines
• No need for metal inserts with All-PP SGF frontend solution

Thomas Rothmayer
Application Marketing Manager
Borouge

11:40 Developing Cost-Effective Lightweighting Strategies for Tomorrow’s Vehicles

• Sharing global lightweight vehicle initiatives and targets
• New alternative technologies and processes for vehicle bodies
• Developing effective weight reduction strategies for vehicle subsystem
• Reducing weight through parts consolidation
• Developing low emission materials

Sigrun Jagodzinski
Advanced Materials Manager
BMW Group

12:20 Processing of Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Plastics with Presses from Schuler SMG

• Motivation for the use of CFRP-parts in automotive industry
• The vacuum-assisted high pressure RTM press process
• Press technology for the high pressure RTM process with example of supplied presses 3600 t – 3.6 x 2.4 m
• System overview of complete process incl. production of performs

Lother Graebener
Vice President Sales
Schuler SMG GmbH & Co. KG

14:00 Comparing Cost Advantages of Various Lightweight Metal Alloys

• Exploring and comparing material characteristics of lightweight metal alloys: aluminium, magnesium etc.
• Reviewing structural composites: Viper, cost, weight, investment, and performance
• Sharing the recent research projects of applying aluminium and magnesium alloys on lightweight systems

Liu Bo
Manager, Body Technology Department Global R&D Center
Chang’An Automotive

14:40 Session Reserved for Aleris

15:30 Case Study: Magnesium Alloys in Electric Buses to Reduce Weight

• An overview of the electric bus development in China
• Sharing areas of applications for magnesium alloys and weight saving statistics
• Analysing the magnesium resources in China and Shandong province
• Experience drawn from the recent projects

Zhou JiXue
Researcher, New Materials Research Center
ShangDong Academy of Science

16:10 Developing Low Cost Carbon Fibre

• Understanding the cost structure for developing and manufacturing carbon fibre
• Developing advanced processing technologies to produce low cost carbon fibre
• Learning from the experiences in Europe

Prof. Jan-Anders Månson
Laboratory of Polymer and Composites Technology
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

16:50 Chair’s Summary and Q&A

17:00 End of Day One Conference