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Acta Metall Sin  2020, Vol. 56 Issue (4): 429-443    DOI: 10.11900/0412.1961.2020.00003
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Strength, Ductility and Fracture Strain ofPress-Hardening Steels
YI Hongliang1,2(),CHANG Zhiyuan1,CAI Helong1,DU Pengju1,YANG Dapeng1
1.State Key Laboratory of Rolling and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
2.Easyforming Materials Technology Co. , Ltd. , Suzhou 215123, China
Cite this article: 

YI Hongliang,CHANG Zhiyuan,CAI Helong,DU Pengju,YANG Dapeng. Strength, Ductility and Fracture Strain ofPress-Hardening Steels. Acta Metall Sin, 2020, 56(4): 429-443.

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Abstract  

Press-hardening steels (PHS) are increasingly used for vehicle body structure components because of their lightening potential owning to superiorly high strength, adequate ductility and fracture resistance. New PHS grades with higher strength and enhanced fracture resistance are being widely studied now for achieving further vehicle weight reduction, and the recent development in this field is reviewed in this article. Combining quenching and partitioning (Q&P) with the hot stamping process has been explored by some researchers, as well as tempering after the hot stamping using the medium-Mn steels. A certain amount of austenite could remain by the above processes and the resulted tensile strength can exceed 1500 MPa while tensile ductility of 10%~16% can be achieved utilizing the transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) effect. A V micro-alloyed steel (34MnB5V) for hot stamping has been designed, utilizing both grain refinement and precipitation strengthening of VC. The tensile strength of the newly developed 34MnB5V exceeds 2000 MPa which is much higher than that of the most commonly used PHS 22MnB5 (1500 MPa). Meanwhile, the ductility and bending properties of the above two steels are comparable. Al-Si coated PHS is usually adopted to avoid oxidation during heating and improve its corrosion resistance after stamping. However, its bendability after forming is lower than that of the bare grade when surface decarburization is absent. The thickness of the brittle Fe2Al5 phase was reduced and the carbon enrichment at the interface of α-Fe and martensite matrix was weakened after hot stamping by thinning of the Al-Si coating. Thus, the bending property was improved. The applicability of the new designed processes for the existing production lines should be considered in future studies. The bending test should be adopted for the deformability evaluation rather than the uniaxial tensile test simply. The welding property and the mechanism of hydrogen embrittlement should also be studied for industrial application of the new developed steels.

Key words:  light weighting      hot stamping steel      Al-Si coating      ductility      bendability      fracture resistance     
Received:  03 January 2020     
ZTFLH:  TG142.41  
Fund: National Natural Science Foundation of China(51722402);National Natural Science Foundation of China(U1560204);Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(N170705001);111 Project(B16009)

URL: 

https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/10.11900/0412.1961.2020.00003     OR     https://www.ams.org.cn/EN/Y2020/V56/I4/429

Fig.1  Bending crush energy absorption test of automobile parts(a) device (b) crack extension of the hot stamped part by crush
Fig.2  Schematics of VDA 238-100 bending process (a) and strain state during bending (b) (α, t,ε represent bending angle, sheet thickness and principal strain in the circumferential direction, respectively)
SteelCSiMnTiBVFe
22MnB50.220.221.330.0290.0031-Bal.
34MnB5V0.340.321.390.0300.00250.11~0.30Bal.
Table 1  Chemical compositions of 22MnB5 and 34MnB5V[14]
Fig.3  Prior austenite grain boundaries of 22MnB5 (a) and 34MnB5V (b) austenitized for 4 min at 900 ℃, and TEM images of quenched lath martensite (c) and VC precipitation particles (d) in 34MnB5V
Fig.4  Tensile curves (a) and three points bending load-angle curves (b) of 22MnB5 and 34MnB5V
Fig.5  Door beam using 34MnB5V press-hardening steels (a) and vehicle crash test (b)
Fig.6  Schematics of the quenching and partitioning (Q&P) process (a) and the press-hardening process (b) (α' and γ represent martensite and austenite, respectively)
Fig.7  Mechanical properties of 22MnB5 and the press-hardening steels treated by Q&P process[17,18,19,20] and designed by quenching and flash-partitioning (Q&FP) concept[21] (adjusted to JIS5 standard specimen geometry[36])
Fig.8  Bright-field (a, c) and dark-field (b, d) TEM images of the press-hardening steels QFP1500[21] (a, b) and QFP1800 (c, d) designed by Q&FP concept (γ presents retained austenite and the insets in Figs.8b and d show the SAED patterns of γ)
Fig.9  Engineering stress-strain curves of 22MnB5 and the press-hardening steels designed by Q&FP concept
Fig.10  Schematic of medium-Mn steels with warm stamping processes (a) and the engineering stress-strain curves of medium-Mn[23] steels with warm stamping and 22MnB5 (b)
Fig.11  Schematic of medium-Mn PHS with quenching-tempering & partitioning (Q-T&P) and quenching-baking & partitioning (Q-B&P) processes (a), and the engineering stress-strain curves of medium-Mn PHS with Q-T&P and Q-B&P[44] processes and 22MnB5 (b)
Fig.12  SEM images of Al-Si coated press-hardening steels with pre-coating thickness of about 25 μm(a) after hot dipping (b) after hot stamping
Fig.13  High carbon embrittlement model between Al-Si coating and boron steel after hot stamping for the Al-Si coating plate with the coating thicknesses of 25 μm (a) and 10 μm (b), respectivelyColor online
Fig.14  SEM images of Al-Si coated press-hardening steels with pre-coating thickness of about 10 μm after hot dipping (a) and after hot stamping (b)
Fig.15  The C concentration profiles of α′ matrix and α-Fe after hot stamping for the Al-Si coating plate with the coating thicknesses of 25 μm (a) and 10 μm (b), respectively
Fig.16  Bending load-displacement curves (a, b) and crack propagation after crushing (c~e) of Al-Si coated press hardening parts for the pre-coating thicknesses of 25 μm and 10 μm(a) hot stamped (b) hot stamped and baked (Crack extension of the hot stamped and baked parts by crush)(c) 14 d after crushing (10 μm) (d) 14 d after crushing (25 μm) (e) brittle fracture morphology (25 μm)
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