Abstract

The role of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) in the automotive industry is important because of its affordability and excellent mechanical properties. The 1st generation of AHSS achieves its preferred combination of strength and ductility by embedding harder martensite grains into softer ferritic matrix. Ductility and strength of these steels are important to safety, formability, application, and life. However, a noticeable degree of inconsistent forming behaviors has been observed in the 1st generation AHSS in production, which seems to be related to the microstructure-level inhomogeneity. The objective of this project is to grain fundamental understandings on how different microstructure level features of AHSS can influence the behaviors of these steels subjected to deformation paths similar to those experiences in automotive forming operations. The ultimate goal is to accelerate the cost-effective vehicle weight reduction through increasing use of these steels. In this study, microstructure characterization has been performed on nine different DP980 grade steels. SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) pictures were first taken from the DP steels. Image processing tools in MATLAB and Photoshop were then adopted to mathematically quantify the microstructural features of these different steels. The obtained data in this study are expected to correlate with the macroscopic deformation behaviors observed in various experiments. PNNL-SA-81894.

Disciplines

Computational Engineering | Numerical Analysis and Computation | Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing | Structural Materials

Mentor

Xin Sun

Lab site

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)

Funding Acknowledgement

This material is based upon work supported by the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0952013. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation or the National Science Foundation.

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URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/star/91

 

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