Sustainable mobility

Filmmakers of the mid-1980s sometimes offered these crazy fantasies of people talking to their cars via their wristwatches or of riding a hoverboard to get around town. Nearly 40 years down the road, these imaginative ideas have become reality. And experts are now predicting that in another 30 years vehicles will be able to travel autonomously both on land and in the air (see interview). Or maybe even Tesla boss Elon Musk’s dream of his Hyperloop will have come true. This concept sees people riding in capsules, or “pods,” through a vacuum tube.

“The challenge will be to keep climate protection and the social aspects of sustainability in mind along the entire value chain while developing these vehicles of the future,” says Christina Widmann, Sustainability Manager at GF Casting Solutions. This value chain includes the procurement of materials and machinery, as well as managerial tasks such as establishing sustainable thinking as part of a culture of innovation. Sales and logistics are as much a part of the value chain as the use of the product and end-of-life management – that is, what happens to the product when it is no longer needed. GF considers aspects of sustainability in all these areas.

It is generally employees who provide the inspiration for these ideas. A system is in place to continuously evaluate them in terms of sustainability right from the outset. In addition, GF is receptive to new ideas from outside the company as part of its collaboration with Startup Autobahn, an open innovation platform that brings together technology start-ups and leading industrial companies to jointly develop innovations.

Computer-aided design and virtual simulation have revolutionized the design process in the automotive industry. In addition to cutting costs and saving time, virtual simulations essentially mean that fewer resources are consumed, because significantly fewer prototypes are required. At GF, this affects a significant number of all components produced, including body & structure, powertrain and chassis parts for the automotive industry. “We would like to continue greatly increasing the precision of simulations in the future, so we can produce the components even more easily while consuming less energy,” says Dominik Mahnig, Head of Product Development at GF Casting Solutions.

GF is leading the way with its commitment to preliminary and series development. “We design, simulate, optimize and validate everything from a single source with our strong capacities for research and development. It helps us to provide optimum support to the customer,” Dominik says. And the focus always remains on developments pertaining to products, processes and materials. In the past, GF has been able to leverage this innovation and development process to bring products to the market that have enabled weight savings of up to 40%.

GF focuses on reusing materials many times over, as well as on selecting materials that can be returned to the manufacturing cycle. The GF Casting Solutions foundries are an example of this. The division now uses more than 90% recycled materials in iron casting. In addition, it is working towards further increasing the content of recycled materials in aluminum alloys. For example, scrap companies supply recycled materials such as auto body & structure scrap, sheet metal scrap from heating appliances or tire wires for iron casting. Leading vehicle manufacturers attach great importance to the carbon footprint and appreciate the longstanding transparency that GF has always exemplified.

For Gabriel Selbach, Head of Innovation at GF Casting Solutions, the company is using innovation as a means to assume more leadership in terms of sustainability: “We strengthen our competitiveness and the future orientation of our products on the market by focusing on sustainability.”

Saltworks Technologies, a Canadian company, provides an alternative to conventional methods for lithium extraction. This process involves industrial wastewater being subjected to reverse osmosis. The byproduct of the filtration process is a caustic solution from which Saltworks can then extract lithium for batteries by means of ion exchange. Nina Pongracz is Global Communications Manager for Sustainability at GF Piping Systems and offers this explanation: “The brine is thick, salty, bad for the environment, and it is difficult to dispose of completely.”

But thanks to products from GF, this byproduct can now be used as a raw material. GF Piping Systems ensures that the plant operates efficiently using process automation that includes valves, fittings and pipes. The quality of the GF products here is a unique selling point. The GF brand is also considered by leading industrial customers to stand for the safe disposal of residual material, as well as a higher yield of clean water. “One leading microelectronics company insisted on GF products being used in order to ensure accuracy and quality,” says Nina.

However, a higher bypass ratio also means that more air flows out of the turbine, thus increasing the engine efficiency, which generates significantly more heat and affects the compressor in the process.

This applies, for example, to the bladed disks, or blisks, used as a component of the engine compressor. These are a combination of rotor disks and blades and ensure that a sufficient quantity of compressed air enters the engine. Engine manufacturers have started to use Inconel, a special nickel-chromium alloy, instead of the materials commonly used to make engines, such as aluminum or titanium, in order to withstand the extra heat. Ceramics are being used to replace the metal components in turbines. However, the new material is creating challenges in production. “It only takes a few minutes to make metal components. But it can take hours to make the same component from a new material,” Dameon explains.

Today, the six furnaces are operating with greater efficiency than manufacturer specifications at the site in Herzogenburg (Austria), which greatly reduces the demand for natural gas. “We want to move away from fossil fuels in the future and start using more renewable energy sources, such as electricity for induction furnaces,” reports Michael Kornherr, Head of Smelting at GF Casting Solutions in Herzogenburg. Transmission housings, such as ones for hybrid electric vehicles, battery housings, doors and rear door frames for vehicles are produced in this town near Vienna. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps find the optimal settings for the production parameters more quickly, for example, when working with new products. This also helps keep scrap at a minimum.

But what happens to a product when it is no longer needed? It is crucial also to have a well-designed recycling concept. For example, several functions in a Mercedes S-Class model have been combined in a single- piece cross member for the cockpit developed and manufactured by GF, which results in greater recyclability.

Environmental protection is also a priority in production in the GF Casting Solutions foundry where Michael works – likewise, for the sprues, a type of net in the form of a cluster from which the components are detached. The “branches” can then be recycled without further issues. “We don’t throw away anything anymore,” says Michael. A product’s carbon footprint is determined by the sum of all measures. It is important to consider the eco balance over the product’s entire life cycle. This is the only way in which sustainable products for the mobility of the future can be produced in a genuinely sustainable manner. And this applies to all modes of transportation, both the ones we use currently and those we still consider to be science fiction.