From the outer car panels to the intricate components of a tyre pressure sensor, metal pressing is used throughout.
Over the years, manufacturers have been substituting sheet metal with plastic as it is less costly than metal forming, but many car manufacturers have stuck with metal as it can look smarter than plastic stamping and offers greater reliability. Passenger safety remains the top priority.
You are probably familiar with the outer shell of a vehicle being made primarily from steel. Generally, you can find steel in car parts like an engine, exhaust, wheels, chassis, or roof.
Metal stamped components can also be found in the electronics of vehicles which we explore in more detail below:
Instrument clusters
Used to house various displays and indicators in a vehicle, instrument clusters are essential for the driver to operate a vehicle. Housing gauges such as speedometers, oil pressure, fuel gauge etc, provide drivers with easily viewable critical system information.
These clusters have to be designed around the gauges at the heart of the product, so important design factors such as weight reduction and cooling features are a must. They can be designed as mass production or redesigned to be fit for purpose.
These parts are manufactured in steel, aluminium, and stainless steel, depending on the requirement, with thicknesses ranging from 0.2mm to 1mm.
Infotainment
Automotive manufacturers are pushing infotainment boundaries in terms of content, size, and technologies such as O-LEDs and cameras.
Even though the infotainment systems are made from plastic, the casing around them is a pressed metal. Similar to the instrument clusters, infotainment chassis are designed around the infotainment system. These are usually pre-zinc coated steels with thicknesses ranging from 0.4mm to 1.2mm.
Lighting
Vehicle lights themselves – ranging from front and rear headlights to indicators – are plastic moulds but the heatshields, fitting clips, EMC shields and heat sinks are pressed metal. They can be made up from a range of materials such as zinc-coated steels, stainless steel, and aluminium.
Without these pressed metal parts, lights wouldn’t be able to the functions they do these days. There would be no adaptive lights, for instance.
Reception Systems
Vehicles are now made with technologies to combat smart architecture and autonomous driving, but without chassis and housing for the reception systems, they couldn’t be fitted into the vehicle. The chassis and housings are metal pressed from pre-tin coated materials.
Reception systems provide many features in vehicles such as mobile communication, GPS, keyless entry, Tv, digital and analogue radio and many more.
Tyre Pressure Sensors
A tyre on any vehicle registered in the EU from 2014 has to have a Tyre Pressure Monitor System (TPMS) safety device installed. Some of the components that make up this system are metal pressed, including the components to assemble the TPMS to the vehicle or directly to the tyre, which are produced in cold-formed structural steel and sub-assembled with a weld or clinch stud.
As one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of automotive pressings, Clamason Industries (UK and Slovakia) give our clients a competitive advantage through manufacturing excellence. Our metal pressings serve a range of applications and are expertly manufactured within the automotive sector.