Floor Panel Reinforcements – Made Better Than Ever

Called upon to fabricate critical floor panel reinforcements for a major automotive manufacturer, LTC’s experts took a good look at the company’s existing design and found ways to make it a good deal better. The reinforcements had been traditionally manufactured from heavy-gauge cold rolled steel, needed to supply essential rigidity and strength. The LTC team analyzed the design in light of new, high strength lightweight materials, and found that the reinforcement could be readily manufactured in martensitic steel for substantial weight reduction. The team’s redesigned product weighed an entire pound less per piece; a nearly 40% reduction! With four supports used per vehicle, the new design reducing the overall vehicle weight by four pounds in total. The reduced mass correspondingly cut the per-piece part cost by approximately 30%. Despite being thinner and lighter, the new parts boasted over 100% increase in strength, increasing both durability and safety. This is a proven testament to LTC’s forward thinking engineering expertise!