Two federal grants received by the Ames Laboratory will provide funding for research in designing “supercars.”

The grants represent more than $1.2 million dollars worth of research support for the next three years.

One research project will study inexpensive methods of creating stronger, lightweight composites for automobile components.

Another project will attempt to develop new materials for the torque sensors in automobile steering systems.

Torque sensors are devices which sense how much pressure would be needed to put a certain device on the vehicle. The torque sensor has practical usage in the braking system and automatic transmission of a vehicle.

Over the course of the next three years, Dr. Iver Anderson, a senior metallurgist at the Ames Lab, will head a project researching low-cost methods to create aluminum powder. The team hopes to process the powder with hard ceramic particles to make high-performance metal composites for critical automotive engines, suspension and braking system components.

Anderson said that even though aluminum is lighter, its composites can be just as strong and crashworthy as steel.

A $415,000 grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Transportation Technologies will allow the research team to explore different possibilities.

The new engines are made of an aluminum alloy, James Madison, an engineer with Iowa Pork and Beef, said.

“It doesn’t give you a long life, but it does dissipate more heat. The older engines were made of cast iron,” he said.

Aluminum parts are traditionally more expensive and were previously limited in number for the aerospace and aircraft industries.

Anderson and his team are developing a method to create aluminum powders using gas atomization reaction synthesis.

Researchers are trying to develop a method to create lighter and less expensive aluminum for critical car engine parts.

Also, Dr. David Jiles, an Iowa State professor and Ames Lab senior physicist, will lead a research team utilizing an $820,000 grant to develop a new type of magnetoelastic material to be used in electronic torque sensors. The grant is from the DOE’s Advanced Energy Program.

Jiles and his team hope to create an advanced steering system that will use the new torque sensors.

The steering system will be less costly, safer and more fuel efficient than the current system used in most vehicles — the hydraulic steering system.

The new torque system could provide drivers with information on the performance of the car and help reduce the vehicle’s fuel consumption by monitoring the drive shaft torque to identify when the engine misfires.

“Competition for these grants is very heavy,” Anderson said in a press release.

“We were up against other much larger laboratories and university research facilities, so these grants are a significant show of confidence by the Department of Energy in the capabilities of Ames Laboratory and our scientists.”