Lightening and testing of commercial vehicle door hinges with aluminum alloys

In today's automotive industry, one of the most important issues in the design of vehicles comes out as weight. Increase in weight results in increasing of fuel consumption. For this reason, designs are mostly carried out on the weight reduction of automotive parts. In this study, hinges made with steel hot forging process used in the back doors of commercial vehicles are aimed to be lightened by selecting the appropriate aluminum alloy. S355J0 and S355J2 steel products are commonly used in existing models. Aluminum alloy hinges determined and manufactured within the scope of the thesis study will be compared with existing models in terms of corrosion and tensile behavior. As result, the hinges are lightened by adapting a new hinge material provided that the criteria for hinges used in commercial vehicles are met.