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The brief handed to our Arvida Research and Development Centre, in Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean, five years ago, was a tough one: invent a stronger car wheel alloy that could cut fuel consumption, improve safety and handling and supersede an industry standard no one had bettered for more than four decades. And oh, for good measure, make the wheels at existing facilities (to keep the cost down), and also make sure they are easy to recycle.
Whew.
Technical director Jerome Fourmann explains why we set out to meet this challenge: “We wanted to offer automakers a new, innovative alloy that allowed them, through styling and design, to reduce the weight of the wheels, which is very important to improving fuel efficiency – because, in the end, people want to drive not just the safest but also the greenest and most innovative cars.”
It has been a long journey, but between our commercial team and the experts at our ARDC, we have delivered on the task and then some. The end product is a brand new and fully tested wheel alloy, fittingly called Revolution-Al™.
Revolution-Al™’s main improvement is that it is 15-20% stronger than the traditional - and less colourfully named - wheel alloy, A356.2. This translates to a 7% weight reduction and better fuel efficiency or battery range. The lighter, stronger wheels also mean better performance and handling and reduced tire wear.
Plus, when a wheel is lighter, the impact on efficiency is more dramatic than with other parts – because a lighter wheel means the car needs less energy to start moving. The strength of Revolution-Al™ means that as manufacturers increasingly look to make lighter, more fuel efficient cars, the new alloy could be used to light-weight car parts other than wheels.
And, not forgetting the last part of the challenge, Revolution-Al™ also needs less time to produce a wheel and is cast in existing facilities, thereby reducing the cost and increasing the rate of production.
Industrial product and investment director Jean-Francois Laplante says there was a fantastic feeling among the teams when they finally solved the puzzle. “The current wheel alloy has been around for a long time and now we’re coming to the market with a new way of doing things,” Jean-Francois says. “We were super excited when we saw the result.”
Revolution-Al™ is testament to our long commitment to innovation and partnership – in this case, with our customers, who helped us trial and test this new alloy.
In September 2019, we received our first order.
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With the exception of the use of cookies (explained below), Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website. However if you choose to provide personal data to Rio Tinto through this website (for example, by sending us an email), we will process that personal data to answer your query and if relevant, to manage our business relationship with you or your company. We won't process that personal data for other purposes except where required to meet our legal obligations or otherwise as authorised by law and notified to you.
Part 1 of this Privacy Policy contains the Rio Tinto Data Privacy Standard, which provides an overview of Rio Tinto’s approach to personal data processing. There is additional information in the appendices to the Data Privacy Standard, including information about disclosures, trans-border data transfers, the exercise of data subject rights and how to make complaints or obtain further information relating to Rio Tinto’s processing of your personal data.
If you choose to subscribe to our media releases or other communications, you can unsubscribe at any time (by following the instructions in the email or by contacting us at digital.comms@riotinto.com).
With your consent, our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.
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As some data privacy laws regulate IP addresses and other information collected through the use of cookies as personal data, Rio Tinto’s processing of such personal data needs to comply with its Data Privacy Standard (see Part 1 of this Privacy Policy), and also applicable data privacy laws.
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