Page 41 - MetalForming April 2020

May 20, 2020
Suburban Collection Showplace, Novi, MI
Featuring 30 presentations by pro- fessionals from automotive OEMs, suppliers, academia and industry organizations, GDIS, expected to wel- come 1800 attendees, highlights the latest in advanced high-strength steels (AHSS), automotive body design, engineering and manufacturing tech- nologies. And, now in a larger venue, GDIS provides 10,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space, filled with industry suppliers and real-life examples of AHSS-laden vehicles and vehicle systems. Look for MetalForming magazine’s booth, and its editors, at the event.
For more on GDIS, visit www.greatdesignsinsteel.com.
AHSS are becoming production-avail- able, with many grades already quali- fied, or undergoing qualification, for use by automotive OEMs,” Catterall says. “OEMs are starting to engineer those grades into their products, and will increase their use moving forward. We’ll have to educate stampers about what these materials can and cannot do (see the sidebar, Resources for Those Working with New AHSS Grades side- bar). These steels feature increased elongation and can be cold stamped into more complex shapes than even dual-phase steels.”
An Alternative to Hot Stamping?
These new AHSS grades, continu- ing the trend toward higher strength while maintaining formability, offer an alternative to some hot stamping applications, according to Catterall. He offers B-pillars—the center pillars between vehicle front and rear doors— as examples.
“B-pillar production has gone in the direction of hot stamping,” he says, “with companies working on speeding the process and the use of soft zones,
where a pillar exhibits only localized higher strength, and using slightly lower-strength material to create a hinge point in the pillar. Third-gener- ation AHSS offers the vision of pro- ducing some of these B-pillars through cold stamping. OEMs, Tier Ones and other stampers will conduct business- case investigations to determine the most effective approach, which may be volume-sensitive. Hot stamping requires a large capital investment, more energy and more-expensive dies. Those producing low-volume vehicles may wish to avoid that initial invest- ment and welcome the cold stamping option.”
A years-long continuing trend, the volume drop-off of particular models, brings the hot stamping volume argu- ment to the fore, and though volume levels of a particular panel recede, more versions of a particular panel must be stamped to meet customization demands.
“As a result, we may see a business- case trade-off between some of the third-generation steels coming online and the hot stamped parts,” Catterall
explains. “Another trend concerns using hot stamping for an entire structural body side. Efforts here will continue because third-generation steels are not far enough along in R&D to enable
Resources for Those Working with New AHSS Grades
Resources exist for those tasked with creating automotive parts, panels and components from tough and tricky advanced high-strength steels (AHSS), including the latest third-generation grades.
“The steel companies producing these advanced steels have a vested interest in their successful use in industry,” says Danny Schaeffler, founder and president of Engineering Quality Solutions (www.EQSgroup.com) and author of MetalForming’s monthly Science of Forming column. “There may be opportunities to interact with these steel-company applications engineers, whose roles are to ensure supply of the right grades for individual parts, and impart expertise on how stampers can best use these products.”
In many cases where a stamper does not have access to the steel-applications engineer, independent consultants can provide needed expertise. And, as noted in the main article, the Auto/Steel Partnership, through its Stamping Tooling Optimization team, offers training in metallurgy, formability, joining and die construction for AHSS parts. For information and training materials, visit www.a-sp.org/training.
Beyond that, help is on the way from WorldAutoSteel via a new version of Advanced High-Strength Steels Application Guidelines. The current guidelines, Version 6.0, available as a free, 300-page PDF download from the organization’s website, www.worldautosteel.org, were released in 2017 and have pro-
vided innumerable benefits on forming and joining of AHSS grades used in automotive-body structures.
But the coming version brings whole new levels of infor- mation and access. Tapping the expertise of global AHSS suppliers and industry experts such as Schaeffler, George Coates of The Phoenix Group and WorldAutoSteel, and joining expert Menachem Kimchi of The Ohio State University’s Material Science Engineering department, the new, web- based Advanced High-Strength Steels Application Guidelines expects to roll out sections this summer with the completed guidelines scheduled for 2021. Including steel grades com- mercially available since release of the previous version, this new version, as a web-based resource, is fully searchable.
“Users will be able to search for parameters of interest, such as specific grades or forming issues such as the influ- ence of cut-edge quality on shearing of dual-phase 700/1000,” says Schaeffler. “Instead of leafing through a 300- page PDF, users will be brought to a web page with a very specific focus. Within that web page are appropriate hyper- links to other related issues as well as links to resources for learning more about the specific issue in question.”
To sign up for access and updates on Advanced High- Strength Steels Application Guidelines, visit www.ahssin- sights.org. Schaeffler details this pending release in his April Science of Forming column, beginning on page 42.
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