Analysis of microstructure and mechanical properties of different high strength carbon steels after hot stamping

Usage of high strength steels may reduce the weight of automobiles and improve the crash safety and low down the gas emissions. Besides cold forming, hot stamping has gained much interest for the production of car body components. Boron alloyed steels have been the point of focus for the materials choice in hot stamping. In this paper, four high strength non-boron alloyed steels were hot stamped using water and nitrogen cooling media. Microstructural analyses, lateral and surface hardness profiling as well as tensile tests of hot stamped samples were performed. These steels provided yield strength (VS.) values of 600-1100 MPa and ultimate tensile strength (U.T.S.) values of 900-1400 MPa. Increasing cooling rates, i.e. by using nitrogen cooled punch (NCP) during hot stamping resulted in mostly martensitic microstructure and maximum strength, while hot stamping using water cooled punch (WCP) resulted in maximum formability index due to presence of some ferrite phase. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.