Automotive high strength steel demand rises

The demand for high strength steels, including the dual-phase materials, by vehicle manufacturers is increasing because of a blend of structural, crash performance and weight benefits.

Corus, the international steel company, has been working closely with Ford to help the carmaker develop and implement the latest grades of high strength steels into several key applications on the new Galaxy model range.

Today, the demand for high strength steels, including the latest dual-phase materials, by vehicle manufacturers is increasing because of the overall blend of structural, crash performance and weight benefits they offer.

The attraction of these steels is that they offer vehicle engineers a good balance between strength and formability.

However, they do behave differently to traditional steel grades and require significant expertise to implement successfully.

The collaborative work has seen Corus combine its material expertise and computer simulation techniques to help Ford identify areas where material selection can be optimised for a number of key parts for the rear structure of the new Ford Galaxy.

Importantly, improved application of high strength steels during the early design and engineering phase of the new Galaxy has provided opportunities to reduce development time and costs as well as improve vehicle crash performance.

Working closely with Ford engineers at Merkenich, collaborative projects undertaken by Corus on the new Galaxy included forming feasibility studies on the rear-floor, rear-cross member and the heel-kick panels.

The study on the rear-floor panel looked at opportunities to reduce the gauge, and therefore the weight of the panel, whilst ensuring that the complex panel shape was feasible to press.

With the growing use of high-tech steels in today's automotive press shops, it is increasingly important for carmakers to fully understand how a material will deform and flow during the pressing process in order to ensure capability, quality and performance of the finished component.

Corus was also involved in a detailed parts integration study of the rear-floor panel.

In this study, Corus showed that it was possible to use just one part for the floor panel instead of the originally planned two, allowing Ford to save on tooling, process and manufacturing costs.

For the heel-kick and rear-cross member panels, Corus again demonstrated that it was possible to down-gauge in order to reduce weight, replacing High Strength Low Alloy steels with dual-phase material whilst retaining the same impact performance for these panels.

As part of its collaborative work, Corus also employed its unique materials analysis simulation technique called Forming to Crash or F2C to help Ford engineers evaluate the crash performance of key parts such as the rear longitudinals made from its dual-phase material.

By using computer crash analysis techniques, Ford engineers were able to optimise the design of these parts during the Galaxy's development process.

Commenting on the support Corus can offer vehicle manufacturers, Peter Jones, Customer Engineering manager, Corus Automotive Engineering, said: "With the increased use of these advanced high strength steels there is a growing need for carmakers to fully understand how these new materials perform, both during the forming process and in-service on the vehicle, with crash performance of particular importance".

"Corus is a major manufacturer of high strength steels.

Our work with Ford is a good example of how we can offer not only material expertise but also engineering knowledge to help carmakers optimise the selection of these new materials during the development of new vehicle models.

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