“Your bones are strong, but heavy. If a bird had your type of bones it would not be able to fly. Birds instead have hollow bone structures that maintain the strength at a minimum of weight. Birds teach us that we should not restrain ourselves from using a material we desire, just because it is heavy. We should instead change the structure of the material to make it light.”

From bird bones to stainless steel sheets.
Inspired by nature, Volvo Technology has developed Hybrix™, a sheet material made of stainless steel that is very light, but still strong. Like a bird bone, Hybrix™ looks solid on the surface but contains a lot of air inside making it very light. After a long time of development within Volvo, this exciting material is now finally available to the non-automotive market.

Expect all the goodies of stainless steel - at a very low weight.
Hybrix™ looks and behaves just like a common stainless steel sheet. It is as thin, it looks the same, and it has the same stiffness and can even be processed and formed with the same tools. Although a sheet of Hybrix™ is an advanced engineered material, you would probably not be able to distinguish it from a common stainless sheet - until you lift it up. We often get to see even metal experts confused first time they lift up a piece of Hybrix™ - it behaves and looks just like a stainless sheet, but gives the impression of being too light to be made of steel. Because a Hybrix™ sheet is so thin (1 - 2mm) it is not obvious that it is hollow. The low weight is the only apparent difference to a solid stainless steel sheet.


New design opportunities for exclusive and weight sensitive applications.
We believe that the desire for stainless steel is universal. When we combine the high surface quality of stainless steel with low weight we make stainless steel accessible in areas where it has previously been excluded or used at a minimum, due to the weight. Hybrix™ is therefore a very attractive material for exclusive and weight sensitive applications such as aircraft interiors and portable consumer goods.
 

Technically, what is Hybrix™?
Hybrix™ is a very thin (1 - 2 mm) stainless steel micro-sandwich that is strong, formable, light and (depending on the version) weighs between 1.5 - 3.9 kg/m2 . The material is hollow and contains air and millions of microscopic steel fibres that bind the surfaces together. The unique structure of the individual steel fibres makes the material strong and light, yet very formable using a conventional metal press or hydro forming tools. Unlike conventional lightweight sandwich materials, Hybrix™ can be shaped into compound curves, such as organic forms or the shape of a moulded briefcase. The look, feel and behaviour of Hybrix™ are very similar to conventional stainless steel sheet, but it weighs less than half as much.