Engineers from the Nanosteel Company Inc., Providence, reported on the extensive development of advanced high strength steel (AHSS) at the ASM International MS&T19 conference in Portland, Oregon. Developments over the past decade were driven by the demand from the automotive industry for stronger materials that can enable lightweighting to meet increasing fuel-efficiency requirements.
However, achievement of higher strength in many AHSS grades is associated with reductions in ductility and formability. Reduced cold formability diminishes the benefits of AHSS, resulting in constraints limiting geometric complexity and the ability to lightweight while maintaining stiffness through geometric design.
NanoSteel 3rd Generation AHSS overcomes this trade-off in ductility by means of structural changes through a novel, complex mechanism that leads to material strengthening during metal stamping, while retaining significant ductility for energy absorption during a crash event. The specific characteristics of this mechanism were detailed in this presentation, including structure and property evolution during stamping, as well as nondestructive approaches to model and predict yield strength values in actual stampings.
Strengthening of 3rd Generation AHSS during Cold Stamping
Daniel Branagan; Craig Parsons; Tad Machrowicz; Jonathan Cischke; Andrew Frerichs; Brian Meacham; Sheng Cheng; Alla Sergueeva.
NanoSteel Company Inc. www.nanosteelco.com
