6016 Aluminum for Automobile Body Panels

The aluminum alloy is of light weight, high strength, good stretchability, high corrosion resistance, etc., and is highly favored by the automobile and auto parts processing industries. The use of aluminum alloys for automobile body panels can greatly reduce the weight of the body and achieve the effect of energy saving and emission reduction. Cost and price are factors that affect the expansion of the application of automotive aluminum sheets.

Aluminum alloy is currently an ideal lightweight material. It can be used to manufacture automobile body panels, frames, engine cylinders, cylinder heads, pistons, intake manifolds, rocker arms, transmission housings, clutch housings, brake parts, and engine mounts according to different alloys and proportions.

Among many alloy grades, 6xxx aluminum alloys are the main aluminum alloy in automobile body manufacturing. It belongs to heat-treatable aluminum alloy, which has higher strength, better plasticity and excellent corrosion resistance.

Compared with steel plate, it has low density, light weight and high hardening coefficient. At present, 6010, 6016 and 6061 aluminum plates have been widely used in automobile body outer panels, inner panels and wheel hubs.

It is now recognized that the overall performance of 6xxx aluminum alloys is better than that of 2xxx and 5xxx aluminum alloys. As heat-treatable and strengthened aluminum alloys, 6xxx series aluminum alloys have the characteristics of high strength and good weldability after heat treatment, and are widely used in transportation and construction fields.

The 6016 aluminum alloy sheet can be used to manufacture materials for doors, windows, and invisible parts in the body structure, and its excellent formability is perfectly combined with cost-effective processing methods.

The production process of 6016 aluminum sheet is mainly as follows: ingredient-smelting-refining-adding grain refiner-casting-sawing-milling-homogenization heat treatment-hot rolling-heat treatment-cold rolling-heat treatment (two-stage Aging)-transportation to car factory for stamping- bake hardening (HB) treatment.