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Aluminum extruded materials have been mostly used only a few automotive parts until now, such as roof rail, sunroof frame and bumper beams. However, aluminum extruded materials have been being increased in suspension parts, especially, lower control arm. Most of aluminum suspension parts could be obtained by straight profile extrusion and stretch bending and forming technology but the cost of production is a little bit high due to complex forming process. In this paper, curved profile extrusion technology was applied for cost reduction and higher quality guarantee by removing forming process. It has been fabricated curved extruded profile used by curved profile extrusion equipment for removing bending process and designed control arm with optimized profile for taking off forming process. For curved profile extrusion and excellent quality, it has been optimized extrusion condition by controlling and combining extrusion speed and traverse moving speed and distance.

Since the environmental problems and new stricter regulations are forcing the industries to introduce more ecological materials for their products, biodegradable materials have attracted increasing attention. Among these materials, Polylactic acid (PLA) is remarkable for its modulus, strength, chemical resistance. However, PLA could not be used for automobile industries for its low heat resistance and impact strength. Therefore, in this study natural fiber was introduced as reinforcements in order to improve the properties of PLA. And for various experiments, Polypropylene (PP) was used as matrix resin instead of PLA. Especially for improving the properties of PLA composites, surface treatments, annealing, and adding rubber elements were performed. With surface treatments, we found that the mechanical properties of composite were improved. And with annealing treatment, we found the remarkable increase of heat resistance of PLA composite.