Press hardening — An innovative and challenging technology

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Abstract

In view of the growing demand for high-strength, press-hardened sheet metal components and the increasing need for energy and resource efficient process-chains, the optimization of the press hardening process chain is a complex, multi-layered and challenging task. The aim of the present paper is to show the potential for optimization in the press-hardening process chain and to demonstrate initial implementation variants.

Section snippets

Motivation

Press-hardened, crash-relevant components such as side-impact and bumper cross members have been used since the mid-1980s. The trend towards the use of high-strength materials in innovative bodywork concepts that began with this continued ever since (Fig. 1). The number of press-hardened components produced increased from about 3 million units in 1987 to around 124 million in 2010. On this basis the forecast is that the production of high-strength body panels will increase to approximately 350

Challenges in press hardening

In order to make use of the described potentials of press hardening, a variety of technical production challenges has to be overcome. Hence, in addition to technological process optimization, research challenges include the design of forming dies and thermo-mechanical FE simulation, as well as present questions regarding tool tribology and the energy and resource efficiency of the processes.

Characteristic starting points for process optimization are:

  • 1.

    Realization of zero-defect production, e.g.

Research strategies and solution approaches

This chapter describes the challenges of press hardening in terms of process control, tool design, thermo-mechanical coupled simulations, tribology and also energy and resource efficiency. It also presents the research strategies as well as the developed solution approaches.

Evaluation of the energy and resource efficiency of process chains

One milestone on the path to an energy and resource efficient production process chains is the use of holistic balancing methods, evaluation tools and planning software. In the future, such tools will enable engineers, for instance in car body manufacturing, to balance and evaluate process chains in terms of energy and resource efficiency, to choose energy-sensitive influencing factors and to detect technological improvement approaches. Therefore, a method was developed whereby

Summary and outlook

In order to meet the large future demand for hot-formed components and to cope with the increasing demands in terms of energy and resource efficiency, a wide variety of technological challenges must be overcome. The basis for this is formed primarily through the use of thermo-mechanically coupled, finite element simulation, the implementation of defined tribological application conditions and the quantitative determination of the energy and material consumptions of processes. Fundamental

Acknowledgements

The Cluster of Excellence “Energy-Efficient Product and Process Innovations in Production Engineering” (eniPROD) is funded by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) and the Free State of Saxony.

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