Robustness of the Tailored Hot Stamping Process

Abstract

The final mechanical properties of hot stamped components are affected by many process and material parameters due to the multidisciplinary nature of this thermal-mechanical-metallurgical process. The phase transformation, which depends on the temperature field and history, determines the final microstructure and consequently the final mechanical properties. Tailored hot stamping parts – where the cooling rates are locally chosen to achieve structures with graded properties – has been increasingly adopted in the automotive industry. Robustness of the final part properties is more critical than in the conventional hot stamping. In this paper, the robustness of a tailored hot stamping set-up is investigated. The results show that tailored hot stamping is very sensitive to tooling temperature, followed by latent heat radiation emissivity, and convection film coefficient. Traditional hot stamping has higher robustness compared to tailored hot stamping, with respect to the stamped component’s final material properties (i.e. phase fraction, hardness).