Yamaha Goes Green With Recycled Aluminum Cylinders
The engineers at Yamaha are making some intriguing advancements in engine manufacturing. Last week, the brand announced that its all-aluminum DiASil Cylinder design will move away from using virgin aluminum and transition toward recycled aluminum materials. The company estimates that once all product lines using the Japanese firm’s in-house DiASil Cylinder design are switched over, a milestone set four years from now in 2030, Yamaha will cut CO₂ emissions by about 47,000 tons a year.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?
Yamaha launched the DiASil Cylinder design in 2002, becoming the first motorcycle manufacturer to produce an all-aluminum cylinder that required no iron sleeve or plating. The brand uses its cylinder design in a variety of motorcycles and scooters, namely its low-displacement product lines, which include engines such as the 321cc parallel-twin engine powering the Yamaha YZF-R3 and MT-03 motorcycles. The design has several benefits: it resists wear and seizure, manages heat well, weighs less than iron-lined cylinders, recycles efficiently, and above all, is cheaper to make.
The Tuning Fork brand’s cylinders have been made strictly from new, or virgin, aluminum because it yields the best result available. Standard recycled aluminum contains trace impurities, which keep it from meeting the brand’s standards for microstructure, surface properties, or corrosion resistance. Basically, recycled stock wasn’t up to snuff.
Yamaha set out to develop a recycled alloy with properties that mimic virgin aluminum, and just as importantly, can be integrated into existing production lines. According to the announcement, the material was designed with the help of thermodynamic calculations, then was repeatedly tested on the bench and in actual vehicle evaluations. While the below might be confusing for most readers (myself included), what it shows is the recycled metal’s silicon particles matching those of virgin aluminum in size and spread.
What’s Next?
The announcement states that Yamaha will move forward with production beginning with what it dubs “commuter” models built in Indonesia, with a global rollout following. Take a quick glance at the current global lineup, and that means low-displacement scooters and motorcycles, most of which are not offered in the United States.
The switch is part of a long-term strategy, dubbed the “Yamaha Motor Group Environmental Plan 2050,” which aims for carbon neutrality across the whole supply chain by 2050. That covers Yamaha’s own operations (Scope 1 and 2) and everything beyond them (Scope 3). By 2030, Yamaha also wants all aluminum used at its major factories in Japan and overseas to come from sustainable sources.
Source: Yamaha
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