John Paralikas

Multifunctional Materials Used in Automotive Industry: A Critical Review

Nowadays, advanced materials and related processes in the automotive industry, are more widely used, leading to an effort towards reducing weight and fuel consumption. The use of such advanced materials and technologies tends to increase the cost. Multifunctional materials (MFMs) and related processing technologies aim at overcoming this increase of cost by exploiting the high level of functional integration. MFMs are designed so as to meet specific requirements through tailored properties. The use of such materials, in the automotive body construction, can help reduce produced parts, lightweight design, high level of integration of functionalities, advancements in mechanical properties of structures etc. In the current study, there is a clear definition of MFMs, and a critical view of such materials used both in the automotive body construction and in other industrial applications.

Roll Forming of AHSS: Numerical Simulation and Investigation of Effects of Main Process Parameters on Quality

The roll forming process is one of the main processes of producing straight profiles in many industrial sectors. The introduction of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS), such as the DP and TRIP-series, into the production of roll-formed profiles has emerged new challenges. The combination of a higher yield strength with a lower total elongation of AHSS, brings new challenges to the roll forming process. In the current study, the numerical simulation of a V-section profile has been implemented. The effect of the main process parameters, such as the roll forming line velocity, rolls inter-distance, roll gap and rolls diameter on quality characteristics is investigated.