Honda pioneers ablation casting with NSX

Although Honda has yet to reveal the intimate details about the new Acura NSX hybrid supercar, in the latest SAE World Congress the company revealed some interesting features about its body construction including a new aluminium technology used in the car for better rigidity.

Honda claims, NSX will be the world’s first vehicle to apply the process of aluminum ablation casting to produce large ultra-rigid nodes or junction points within the crush zones of the body. The ablation nodes will have sockets into which aluminum extrusions will be inserted and then MIG-welded as part of the spaceframe.

The ablation castings also allow Honda to use traditional aluminum castings at other strategic locations in the spaceframe and as the primary mounting points for suspension and power-unit components.

“Without being able to apply castings at all the suspension points, we couldn’t produce a body this rigid,” Klaus says.

Shawn Tarr, principal engineer and Acura NSX body development leader, gets credit for pushing for the use of ablation casting. He says the binder that holds the sand together within the casting is water-soluble.

“That allows the sand to get out of the way really fast, so then the water can quench the part,” he says.

Tarr says Honda chose an aluminum spaceframe instead of a carbon-fiber monocoque to enable easy repairability.

The ablation castings and extrusion members “were designed in a way that you can extract those by removing the MIG-welds, and then we have a service part, a front clip, that would be replaced entirely,” Tarr says.

Dealers will be trained to do the work. “It’s a very strong concept so the customer doesn’t have to go to some independent shop,” Klaus says. “They will go to an authorized shop to have these high-quality repairs done, which is a real challenge in the supercar market today.”