Niobium Microalloying in the Automotive Steels for Light-Weighting

by Dr. Bian Jian

Publisher - CBMM Brazil

Category - General Novel

Over the last decades lightweight has become the most important strategy in the car body manufacturing and it can be achieved most economically by using high strength steels in the aspects of material, processing and joining. In some recent car models high strength steels have already reached 80% among which conventional high strength steels like HS-IF, HS-BH and HSLA steels remain to be the most widely used steel grades due to their global availability, reasonable price and easy processing. However advanced high strength steels like DP, CP, MS and press hardening steel will increase application due to their high potential for light-weighting. For the car body engineering mechanical properties like strength and elongation are not solely important criteria. With increasing strength level which generally leads to increase of carbon content other parameters like formability, weldability and crash behaviors of the chosen steel grade become dominate factors to the entire body concept. In order to meet the requirements for the automotive application steel industry has developed appropriate metallurgical solutions to tailor these specific properties. This paper will explain how to use niobium microalloying to optimize automotive high strength steels for an optimum integration of strength, formability, weldability and crash performance.

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