High-strength steel components produced by hot metal gas forming

ABSTRACTAdvanced high-strength steels are promising materials for a variety of applications. They can be used in the automotive industry to reduce the car body weight and thus the fuel consumption as well. Very good mechanical properties can be obtained in martensitic steels by the quenching and partitioning process. Making complex-shaped parts using a single forming step is now possible with hot metal gas forming. Several heat treatment sequences were designed. One involved plain hardening to a temperature below the martensite start temperature. Another sequence was intended to explore the influence of the quenching and partitioning process. In this steel with a carbon content of 0.42%, tensile strengths in excess of 1800 MPa with elongations above 15% can be achieved.