Page 45 - MetalForming April 2015

line. Supported by the Ford stamping plant in Buffalo, NY (which stamps 18 relatively small parts for the F-150, with high packing density), the Ford assembly facilities in Dear- born and in Kansas City, MO, are slated to produce 700,000 F-series trucks in 2015.
Ford is buying, says Friedman, some 1000 lb. of aluminum per truck, with a 60- to 65-percent utilization rate.
“We feel very good about that rate,” Friedman adds, “due in part to con-
Any discussion of the success of the new F-150 must include its high-strength-steel frame, responsible for 60 lb. of weight reduction. There are a few ‘firsts’ with this new frame, including the use of rollformed parts and a patent-pending 12-corner stamped
trolling trim levels, minimizing
stamped blank sizes anSdtayusininfogrmoeffdalof the latest occurrences within our industry,
a
is not all about aluminum. The new
truck, underneath its skin, has what
Ford refers to as the F-150’s strongest
w
frame yet. Comprising 75-percent high- strength steel (20 percent is 550-MPa yield strength, and 55 percent is 340- MPa yield strength), the frame accounts for nearly 10 percent of the truck’s over- all weight reduction.
Segregating, Recycling Four Alloy Classes
The aluminum-intensive F-150 is a
project that’s been in the making at
Ford for several years, dating back to the early 1990s when the firm assem- bled 20 aluminum Sables; its work with Jaguar in the late 1990s on the XJ model; and the Go Fast program in 2009 when Ford built four F-150 pro- totypes with “everything north of the
dies.”
One important note: The F-150 story
frame made from aluminum,” says Friedman.
“When we hit program-start for the 2015 F-150, we’d already experienced two levels of prototypes and were very confident in what the truck could do,” Friedman adds. “From that point on the focus shifted to manufacturing, understanding how to purchase that much aluminum as well as process it— stamp, weld, paint, etc. By 2013 the
crush horn.
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