Landrover goes "light metal": Martinrea Honsel combines highest safety standards with weight-savings in the aluminium Rear Subframe for the new Range Rover

Mobility, environmental sustainability and comfort are the decisive aspects in the present-day development of automotive products. Reducing fuel consumption and cutting CO2 emissions are essential factors in automotive design which make it imperative to reduce vehicle weight. At the same time, there must be no compromise in passenger comfort and safety. Martinrea Honsel supports its customers with intelligent solutions in the field of lightweight design while fulfilling all the requirements of component safety. The aluminium Rear Subframes for the Range Rover are excellent examples of these priorities.

The Rear Subframe is one of the safety-critical chassis components in the new Range Rover manufactured by Landrover. It joins the perfectly coordinated chassis of the luxury off-road vehicle to its bodywork.

Because of its size and complexity of assembly, Martinrea Honsel opted to produce the component as a green-sand casting which is a highly cost-efficient process. The specialist in lightweight design casts the Subframe (which measures 1188 x 805 x 332 mm) in only one piece and forms the hollow structure by inserting a solid sand core. Martinrea Honsel installed a new production line with a high degree of automation in a new building specially for this project. The process is fully automated and interlinked, from core-production through metal-pouring to assembly. After undergoing extensive machining, press-insertion of sleeves and the mounting of reinforcing elements, the Subframe is dispatched to the customer's production line ready for assembly.

Its design and production are geared to assure the prescribed mechanical characteristics as well as the required fatigue strength of the light-metal components.

At a weight of just under 29 kg, the Rear Subframe is around 15 kg lighter than its steel predecessor and makes a substantial contribution to reducing the weight of the finished vehicle and improving its environmental compatibility. "Our innovative lightweight solutions are the right response to the industry's demand for cleaner and more economical vehicles. 100 kg less vehicle weight mean up to 25 g less CO2 emitted to the atmosphere", says Dr. Heinrich Fuchs, Director Aluminium Development at Martinrea Honsel.

Besides the Subframe, Martinrea Honsel also supplies the front shock towers and the V6 and V8 engine blocks for the Range Rover to Jaguar Landrover. In its luxury-class off-road vehicles, Landrover has made a conscious decision in favour of light-metal components, thereby complying with its corporate strategy for sustainability entitled "Our Planet".