Harald Hofmann

Investigation of the Phase Formation of AlSi‐Coatings for Hot Stamping of Boron Alloyed Steel

Hot stamping of boron alloyed steel is gaining more and more importance for the production of high strength automotive body parts. Within hot stamping of quenchenable steels the blank is heated up to austenitization temperature, transferred to the tool, formed rapidly and quenched in the cooled tool. To avoid scale formation during the heating process of the blank, the sheet metal can be coated with an aluminium‐silicum alloy. The meltimg temperature of this coating is below the austenitization temperature of the base material. This means, that a diffusion process between base material and coating has to take place during heating, leading to a higher melting temperature of the coating.In conventional heating devices, like roller hearth furnaces, the diffusion process is reached by relatively low heating rates. New technologies, like induction heating, reach very high heating rates and offer great potentials for the application in hot stamping. Till now it is not proofed, that this technology can be used w...

Design of Modern Steels for Automotive Application

Advanced high-strength steels offer a great potential for the further development of automobile bodies-in-white due to their combined mechanical properties of high formability and strength. New types of grades – multi-phase steels, superductile steels and density reduced steels – are under development at ThyssenKrupp Steel with tensile strength levels of up to 1000 MPa in combination with excellent formability for the high demands of cold formed structural automobile components. New forming technologies at increased temperatures – hot forming, semi-hot forming and superplastic forming - enable the processing of complex parts with extreme high strength. ThyssenKrupp Steel identifies potential future steels and technology concepts by technology monitoring and evaluates their potential for future applications in pre-development projects. University research institutions are significantly involved in this essential future oriented challenge. Seminal concepts are being implemented together with automotive manufactures by simultaneous engineering processes with coordinated phases of production and testing.