Dearborn, Michigan – Walk around the parking lot of any police station in the country, and you’ll see a lot of pickups in the employee parking lot. Okay, this is America, and you’ll see a lot of pickups in just about every employee parking lot in the country, but the percentage is likely to be a bit higher at police stations.
Ford’s latest vehicle will make a lot of those cops who drive trucks as their personal vehicles feel more at home. The 2018 F-150 Police Responder is the auto industry’s first pursuit-rated pickup, giving police the opportunity to chase criminals while maintaining plenty of cargo space.
Ford isn’t exactly new to non-traditional pursuit vehicles. A police version of its Explorer SUV – the Interceptor SUV – is a popular option for police departments, and it also carries a pursuit rating.
Capable of speeds up to 100mph, the F-150 Police Responder features a 3.5L EcoBoost engine (an engine option for the Interceptor SUV) and 10-speed transmission, plus four-wheel drive.
The 375hp and 470 lb-ft of torque are slightly higher than Interceptor SUV ratings – Ford has offered more power from the same engines in its trucks for years as the pickups have drivetrains capable of handling more engine output. Those power boosts for the F-150 make in the most-powerful mainstream police vehicle offered.
The police truck comes in the SuperCrew body style – the largest cab option Ford offers, creating rear-seat room for passengers who may not to be happy to get a ride on a souped-up pickup.
Stephen Tyler, Ford’s police brand marketing manager, says, “This purpose-built pickup can comfortably seat five, while providing capability in off-road patrol situations for officers in rural environments patrolled by sheriff’s departments, border patrol operations, and the Department of Natural Resources.”
Additional F-150 Police Responder performance enhancements include a police-calibrated brake system with upgraded calipers and pad friction material, upgraded front-stabilizer bar for improved braking and handling, and 18” alloy wheels with all-terrain tires. An upfit-ready interior features a column shifter with center-seat delete, heavy-duty cloth front seats with slim bolsters and anti-stab plates, vinyl rear seating, and heavy-duty vinyl flooring for easy cleanup.
A high-output 240A alternator supports on-board electrical devices. Underbody skid plates protect the truck from curbs and rough terrain. A standard class IV hitch gives F-150 Police Responder towing capability of 7,000 lb.
Experimental metal supports microscopic sensors
Johns Hopkins team develops material that promises to help ensure microelectromechanical systems sensors can meet the demands of the next technological frontier.
Baltimore, Maryland – The technological future of everything from cars and jet engines to oil rigs, along with the gadgets, appliances, and public utilities comprising the internet of things, will depend on microscopic sensors.
The trouble is: These sensors are mostly made of the material silicon, which has its limits. Johns Hopkins University materials scientist and mechanical engineer Kevin J. Hemker has led a team that is now reporting success in developing a new material that promises to help ensure that these sensors, also known as microelectromechanical systems, can continue to meet the demands of the next technological frontier.
"For a number of years, we've been trying to make MEMS out of more complex materials" that are more resistant to damage and better at conducting heat and electricity, says Hemker, the Alonzo G. Decker Chair in Mechanical Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering. Hemker worked with a group of students, research scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty at Whiting. The results of their successful experiments are reported in the current issue of the journal Science Advances.
Most MEMS devices have internal structures smaller than the width of a strand of human hair and shaped out of silicon. These devices work well in average temperatures, but even modest amounts of heat – a couple of hundred degrees – causes them to lose their strength and their ability to conduct electronic signals. Silicon is also very brittle and prone to break.
For these reasons, while silicon has been the heart of MEMS technologies for several generations now, the material is not ideal, especially under the high heat and physical stress that future MEMS devices will have to withstand if they are to enable technologies such as the internet of things.
"These applications demand the development of advanced materials with greater strength, density, electrical and thermal conductivity" that hold their shape and can be made and shaped at the microscopic scale, the authors of the paper wrote. "MEMS materials with this suite of properties are not currently available."
The pursuit of new materials led the researchers to consider combinations of metal containing nickel, which is commonly used in advanced structural materials. Nickel-base superalloys, for example, are used to make jet engines. Considering the need for dimensional stability, the researchers experimented with adding the metals molybdenum and tungsten in hopes of curbing the degree to which pure nickel expands in heat.
In a piece of equipment about the size of a refrigerator in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins, the team hit targets with ions to vaporize the alloys into atoms, depositing them onto a surface, or substrate. This created a film that can be peeled away, thus creating freestanding films with an average thickness of 29 microns – less than the thickness of a human hair.
These freestanding alloy films exhibited extraordinary properties. When pulled, they showed a tensile strength – meaning the ability to maintain shape without deforming or breaking – three times greater than high-strength steel. While a few materials have similar strengths, they either do not hold up under high temperatures or cannot be easily shaped into MEMS components.
"We thought the alloying would help us with strength as well as thermal stability," Hemker says. "But we didn't know it was going to help us as much as it did."
He notes the remarkable strength of the material is due to atomic-scale patterning of the alloy's internal crystal structure. The structure strengthens the material and has the added advantage of not impeding the material's ability to conduct electricity.
The structure "has given our films a terrific combination, [a] balance of properties," Hemker says.
The films can withstand high temperatures and are both thermally and mechanically stable. Team members are busy planning the next step of development, which involves shaping the films into MEMS components. Hemker said the group has filed a provisional patent application for the alloy.
The other researchers on the project were Timothy P. Weihs, professor of materials science and engineering; Jessica A. Krogstad, Gi-Dong Sim, and K. Madhav Reddy, who were post-doctoral fellows during various stages of the project; research scientist Kelvin Y. Xie, and current graduate student Gianna Valentino.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant GOALI DMR-1410301.
C.R. Onsrud tool systems boost production at Great Dane Trailers
With demand for lightweight commercial trailers growing Great Dane needed to increase quality and productivity on structural components.
Corrosion resistant and lightweight, aluminum is ideal for hauling goods cross country. Trailers made from aluminum may cost more than steel ones, but users can haul more weight in them and spend less on maintenance. Since 2009, demand for lightweight trailers has nearly tripled.
In Huntsville, Tennessee, Great Dane Trailers wanted to tap into that market with a new all-aluminum trailer and boost production of parts for the combination steel-and-aluminum model.
Senior Manufacturing Engineer Howard Reeve says conditions called for new equipment. “People like them because they don’t rust, and they weigh less. So you can carry more weight on them. We’re trying to have greater market penetration in aluminum trailers, so we needed more capacity. Sales wanted greater capacity to fill orders by large customers.”
Soaring demand
Despite high-profile aluminum use in passenger vehicles, such as Ford’s F-150 or Chevrolet’s Bolt EV electric car, the fastest-growing user of the lightweight metal in ground transportation has come from the commercial side. Since 2009, aluminum shipments to trailer and semitrailer producers have grown at a 19.7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) – far exceeding the 14.8% CAGR posted by cars and light trucks and the 13.5% CAGR noted for all ground transportation by the Aluminum Association trade group.
The plant had been using an aluminum milling machine designed to make screen doors to machine parts for the combination trailers, and a small volume of all-aluminum parts. However, Great Dane engineers had been looking for the proper machine for a long time. The milling machine was the tool they had, not the tool they needed, and Reeve says that the old, high-maintenance machine caused lots of problems.
Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) used a German-language operating system that employees didn’t understand. When the PLCs failed, replacing them required weeks to receive shipments. To avoid lengthy downtime, Great Dane had to stock several spares.
“It was a milling machine that never really fit the application,” Reeve says. The machine was intended for precise metal cutting, so it moved slowly. Front and rear cross members don’t need 20µm tolerances, they needed fast cutting times, he adds. “When you have tight tolerances, things fit better and last longer, but you need to set your tolerances to the part you’re making. It’s typically too expensive to have things milled in the trailer industry.”
New equipment
After meeting with C.R. Onsrud officials at a trade show, Reeve sent the machine maker several aluminum test pieces and asked for sample cuts. C.R. Onsrud Regional Sales Manager Ken Stissel says Great Dane had been considering a 4-axis machine for side milling and drilling of aluminum parts.
“After understanding the application and volumes, I was able to explain and justify the use of a 5-axis spindle. It would provide much more flexibility, less maintenance, and faster cutting,” Stissel says.
He adds that C.R. Onsrud engineers learned so much about the commercial truck and trailer market through projects with customers such as Great Dane that the tool maker developed its X-Series 5-axis CNC machine for that market.
Although it doesn’t use the X-Series, the 5-axis router that C.R. Onsrud supplied to Great Dane is faster than the milling machine it replaced, Reeve says.
After moving all of the parts that had been produced on the milling machine to the C.R. Onsrud router, Great Dane increased the number of parts produced per shift and still had capacity to insource parts it had sent to job shops in the region, paying off its equipment investments more quickly.
“We’re able to get very good products made on the new machine,” Reeve says, adding that the router isn’t as precise as the milling machine had been, but it’s the right tool for the job. As one plant manager noted, Great Dane makes trailers, not watches. “The biggest opportunity for the new equipment is insourcing parts that we were purchasing from machine shops.”
A big factor in the success of the project, Reeve adds, is the similarity of the companies. Both are more than 100 years old, meaning they’ve learned to adapt to changing markets while maintaining reputations for quality and innovation. Location was important as well. Great Dane Trailer engineers and manufacturing managers from the Tennessee plant visited C.R. Onsrud’s North Carolina factory to see how the tools are made.
“I’ve never seen a cleaner production facility,” Reeve says.
Stissel says C.R. Onsrud engineers worked with Great Dane to identify as many opportunities as possible to move production from aging, expensive equipment to modern machines.
“I learned that Great Dane was looking for another machine to cut aluminum plate. I then showed them our twin table machine that would allow them to cut extrusions on one table and aluminum plate on the other table with little to no setup or changeover,” Stissel explains. “The machine has the flexibility to run extrusion or plate on either table. Great Dane liked the ability for them to run parts on one table while setting up the next job or part on the other table, without sacrificing downtime.”
Reeve says buying the router was justified by the reduced costs for the parts due to the machine’s higher speed. The lower price tag for the router helped with the justification, and he says if he factored in downtime reductions, cost savings would be higher.
Auburn Hills, Michigan – Powertrain equipment supplier BorgWarner has agreed to buy British electrification company Sevcon Inc. to boost BorgWartner’s portfolio of power electronics for electrified propulsion.
"This acquisition supports our existing strategy to supply leading technology for all types of propulsion systems; combustion, hybrid and electric," said James Verrier, president and CEO of BorgWarner.
The completion of the transaction is subject to certain terms and conditions, including the approval of Sevcon's stockholders and receipt of required competition law approval. The expected enterprise value of the transaction at closing is approximately $200 million. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017 subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions.
Sevcon is a global supplier of control and power solutions for zero-emission, electric, and hybrid vehicles. Its products control on- and off-road vehicle speed and movement, integrate specialized functions, optimize energy consumption, and help reduce air pollution.
Sevcon's Bassi Division produces battery chargers for electric vehicles; power management and uninterrupted power source systems for industrial, medical, and telecom applications; and electronic instrumentation for battery laboratories.
Magna begins Jaguar SUV production
Contract manufacturing growing as niche production popularity increases.
Cleveland, Ohio – When you’re a small, focused, luxury car brand, volumes are already low enough to prevent the economies of scale that automakers rely on to lower costs. So, offering even lower-volume niche models is even more of a challenge.
That’s good news for Magna International, a company proving itself to be the most flexible automaker in the world – a pretty neat feat for a company that doesn’t design or sell cars.
Magna has begun contract manufacturing for the Jaguar E-PACE, a compact SUV designed by engineers for the British luxury brand. Magna plans to make the vehicle in Graz, Austria, alongside the Jaguar I-PACE (all-electric crossover), BMW 5 Series (mid-sized sedans), BMW 530e (plug-in hybrid sedan), and Mercedes-Benz G-Class (massive SUV).
“This second collaboration in just a short time emphasizes the agility and flexibility we provide automakers with our contract manufacturing capability," said Günther Apfalter, president of Magna Europe and Magna Steyr.
Contract manufacturing for low-volume, niche vehicles is becoming more common.
To launch the E-PACE, Jaguar Land Rover turned to good, old-fashioned stunt attention grabbing. The vehicle set a Guinness World Record by completing a 50ft jump, complete with a 270° corkscrew barrel roll.'
”This amazing feat really was a sight to behold. While I’ve seen the barrel roll stunt in film, witnessing this incredible feat in real life was something pretty special,” said Pravin Patel, adjudicator for Guinness World Records.
The E-PACE is a five-seat, compact SUV, designed to resemble the Jaguar F-TYPE sports car.
About the author: Robert Schoenberger is the editor of Today's Motor Vehicles and a contributor to Today's Medical Developments and Aerospace Manufacturing and Design. He has written about the automotive industry for more than 17 years at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; and The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi.
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