Page 18 - MetalForming August 2019

Hot Stamping Getting Hotter
As we ready for MetalForming’s September Hot Stamping Experience and Tech Tour, here’s an overview of the technology and insight from expert event presenters.
An expanded version of this article cov- ering expertise from more presenters can be found at www.metalforming- magazine.com.
Within the past decade, hot stamping has gained a foothold in North America, as more and more automotive OEMs and their Tier suppliers adopt the tech- nology. Efforts in automotive light- weighting and safety-cage improvement have coincided with introductions of ever-stronger advanced and ultra high strength steel (AHSS, UHSS), and the combination has revealed hot stamping as the process that most efficiently pro- duces—and many times the only process that produces—complex, safe- ty-critical components. Common hot stamped components include A and B pillars, and roof reinforcements, and as the technology becomes more ubiq- uitous, more part applications surface.
Describing the process in its most general terms, steel blanks feed into tunnel or stacked furnaces for heating to a temperature (above 1500 F or so) that makes the blanks malleable. Blanks move into a press capable of controlling stroke rate and dwell time for forming, followed immediately by in-die quenching for 3 to 10 sec.—in- die water channels often serve this pur- pose. The heating and quenching processes—the former shifting the steel to a full austenitic phase followed by the latter for transformation to a full martensitic phase—create the hard- ened material while not overly stressing the tooling, thus the material can be
A hot stamping die at Urgent Design & Manufacturing in Lapeer, MI, awaits a red-hot blank. Rest assured it’s coming, as hot stamping has taken off and continues to grow in North America.
16 MetalForming/August 2019
www.metalformingmagazine.com
BY LOUIS A. KREN, SENIOR EDITOR
formed more easily prior to reaching its final hardened state.
To help metal formers and fabrica- tors stay on top of the technology, Met- alForming magazine debuts its Hot Stamping Experience and Tech Tour, September 17 in Michigan (see sidebar for details). We spoke with some of the event presenters and representatives of hot stamping equipment for an inside look at the current state of the technology and where it’s headed.
Applications Grow in North America and Europe
In practice since the 1970s, hot stamping really took hold in Europe in the 1990s before gaining traction in North America roughly a decade ago. Tracing the technology’s development is Eren Billur, technical manager at Bil- lur Metal Form Ltd. in Turkey. In June, the company held its second MEFTECH technical conference, which featured hot stamping content. With a Ph.D in