Magnesium - future material for automotive industry?

Magnesium alloys show a very high potential in automotive applications as constructive metal, whereas the main focus lies on die cast parts. Electronic industry is the major commercial consumer for die castings besides the automobile industry. Room temperature applications like steering wheels and frame components in cars as well as mobile phone- or notebook housings are well established. These castings are produced with AZ- or AM-magnesium alloys, which show good room temperature properties and a good castability. The great alloy development challenge in extending the use of magnesium cast alloys are application for higher temperatures. The application in powertrain components is considered to be the benchmark here. Besides alloy development there are also further research activities in development of casting processes. Semi-solid processes like New-Rheocasting (NRC), Thoxomolding (TM) or Thixocasting (TC) are adapted to the requirements of newly developed alloys. Not only cast alloys but also magnesium wrought alloys have moved to the centre of interest in the last decade. Alloy development for improving the formability on the one hand as well as process development in extrusion or rolling has to be done in order to find optimum parameters for deforming magnesium alloys properly.