Page 23 - MetalForming Magazine April 2023

Ready for Viewing: Great Designs in Steel Agenda, Highlighting EV Architectures
It's time to start planning your day for Great Designs in Steel 2023, coming May 24. A preliminary agenda now is available (tinyurl.com/ecxbc723), featuring keynote speakers Lourenco Goncalves, Cleveland-Cliffs chairman, president and CEO; and Chris Michaels, General Motors director of global body structures and integrated systems. Presentations are organized into three tracks—EV Architecture, Materials, and Welding/Joining/ Manufacturing.
Among the presentations slated for the Materials Track:
• Edge Fracture Characterization of DP 980 GU Using Half-Dome Test; Gang Huang, ArcelorMittal
• A New Coating Developed for Hot Stamped Steel Parts; Dean Kanelos, Nucor
• On True Fracture Strain of AHSS Sheets: Measurement and Derivation; Dr. Jun Hu, Cleveland-Cliffs
• New SAE Specifications Supporting A/SP, Auto OEMs and the Steel Industry; Alan Pearson, Whitehorse Mfg. Quality Consultants.
in critical autobody structural compo- nents such as seat side supports.
Touted as U.S. Steel’s most advanced AHSS grade: 980 XG3, a 980-MPa ten- sile-strength 3rd Gen grade touted as a potential replacement for press-hard- enable steels with reportedly identical crash performance and part weight. 980 XG3 has an excellent combination of strength and ductility, say company officials, excellent weldability, a low yield-to-tensile ratio (< 0.7) and total elongation consistently above 20 per- cent. Applications include A- and B- pillar outers and inners, roof headers, rear rails and hinge pillars.
Hyundai Steel’s New 1.8-GPa Hot-Stamped Steel Also Earns worldsteel Recognition
Also earning a worldsteel 2022 Steel- ie Award nomination for Innovation of the Year: Hyundai Steel, for its devel- opment of a 1.5-GPa hot stamping steel. Early in 2022 the firm announced its ability to mass-produce what it says is the world’s first 1.8-GPa hot stamping steel, developed in association with the Hyundai Kia Namyang R&D Center. According to the firm’s press release, it is supplying the new steel product for Hyundai Motor’s new-generation Genesis G80 electric vehicle (G80EV ) and the new Genesis G90.
The company started supplying the new steel to Hyundai Motor Co. in 2021 and it plans to supply as much as 145,000 sheets of steel every year, suf- ficient to produce about 30,000 EVs.
Register to attend: tinyurl.com/6zanx44p.
3rd Gen Grades from ArcelorMittal
Not to be outdone on the hot stamp- ing front, ArcelorMittal, reportedly the first steelmaker to offer the automotive industry a coated press-hardened steel (Usibor 1500 and Ductibor 500), recent- ly has introduced Usibor 2000 and Ductibor 1000.
Usibor and Ductibor have alu- minum-silicon pre-coating, developed to protect the steel from oxidation (scale) and decarburization during hot stamping, company officials note. The pre-coating is applied to the coils in a continuous process, similar to zinc coatings. Usibor 1500-GI galvanized Zn, Usibor 1500 and Usibor 2000-GA galvannealed ZnFe also are available.
For the last couple of years, Arcelor- Mittal has been bringing 3rd Gen steels to the automotive industry under the Fortiform brand. It offers the grades with tensile-strength levels ranging from 980 to 1470 MPa. From a datasheet issued in May 2022:
“The Fortiform/FortiformS/Gen 3 grades extend ArcelorMittal’s range of AHSS and UHSS steels. In comparison to first-generation DP steels (and first- generation TRIP steels), these steels exhibit higher formability at equivalent strength levels. They maintain a high level of bake-hardenability, which in combination with high strain harden- ing results in a substantial increase in the yield stress. These materials are particularly suitable for automotive safety parts with requirements for ener-
gy absorption at high strength levels. They can be used for front and rear rails, shotguns, sled runners and vari- ous cross-members that require shapes too complex for higher-strength DP grades and at strength levels lower than or comparable to press-hardenable steels. In particular, the hole-expansion characteristics supported by these grades make them suitable for appli- cations with higher local formability (edge stretch) than can be typically supported by DP or TRIP grades.”
Posco, Kobe Focused on Multi-Material Solutions
The Posco (Pohang Iron and Steel Co.) Steel Solution Research Center, Automotive Material Research Center and Automotive Material Marketing Office are spurring the development of steel-centered multi-material tech- nologies combining conventional materials such as steel, aluminum, stainless steel and plastic. According to a presentation in the firm’s online newsroom, it expects multi-material solutions to fit nicely into several EV applications, including battery packs and closures (aluminum for the outer panel of the closure and ultra-thin steel for inner panels).
South Korea-based Posco also has been focusing efforts on producing nonoriented electrical steel sheet used in EV motor cores, and in July 2022 it began the construction of a new plant in Coahuila, Mexico, its first North American factory. MF
20 MetalForming/April 2023
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