By the continuous improvement of collision protection in cars higher demands are put on suppliers to improve their products. One of these suppliers is Gestamp Hardtech AB, manufacturer of Chassis and BIW components. BIW is an abbreviation of Body In White that includes components as Crash Management Systems, Underbody, Class A, Upperbody, Closures and Cross Car Beams. The company produces BIW components of sheet metal with the ambition to make as light and strong products as possible.

Hot stamping is the method used to shape sheet steel into the complex geometries of BIW components. But to meet the automotive industry specifications it’s necessary to increase the material strength by temperature controlled hardening. In order to predict the grain boundary hardening of a B-pillar, cooling time simulations are performed by applying CFD analysis for evaluation of heat transfer. The method of CFD analysis was chosen based on cooling system scale and software capabilities. The results show that temperature variations of 120°C occurs on the studied BIW component. Primarily as an affect of inhomogeneous material thicknesses and contact conditions. Furthermore the result was evaluated by comparison to experimental values of surface temperatures, which showed similar surface temperature variations.