Press Hardening offers the possibility to obtain a wide range of mechanical properties through microstructural tailoring. This strategy has been successfully applied in thin sheet components, for instance, through differential cooling strategies. The application of these added value features to truck components implies adapting the process to the manufacture of thick sheet metal. This introduces an additional layer of complexity, but also opportunity, in a process where the final microstructure and, thus the mechanical performance is generated in the press shop. This work presents a study on optimizing the crash worthiness and impact energy absorption on a press hardened thick 22MnB5 steel sheet. Different microstructure design strategies have been studied, including ferrite-Pearlite (representative of a differential heating and austenitization strategy), in-die generated Bainite (representative of differential cooling) and Tempered Martensite (generated through laser tempering), keeping a fully hardened martensite as a reference condition. The material performance has been compared in terms of the monotonic properties, useful for anti-intrusion performance, and Essential Work of Fracture, a well-suited parameter to predict the crash failure behavior of high strength steels. The results show that laser tempering offers properties similar to Bainite-based microstructures and can be a successful replacement in components where the sheet thickness does not allow for the fine control of the in-die thermomechanical evolution.

In this work, the essential work of fracture (EWF) method is introduced for a peridynamic (PD) material model to characterize fracture toughness of ductile materials. First, an analytical derivation for the path-independence of the PD J-integral is provided. Thereafter, the classical J-integral and PD J-integral are computed on a number of analytical crack problems, for subsequent investigation on how it performs under large scale yielding of thin sheets. To represent a highly nonlinear elastic behavior, a new adaptive bond stiffness calibration and a modified bond-damage model with gradual softening are proposed. The model is employed for two different materials: a lower-ductility bainitic-martensitic steel and a higher-ductility bainitic steel. Up to the start of the softening phase, the PD model recovers the experimentally obtained stress-strain response of both materials. Due to the high failure sensitivity on the presence of defects for the lower-ductility material, the PD model could not recover the experimentally obtained EWF values. For the higher-ductility bainitic material, the PD model was able to match very well the experimentally obtained EWF values. Moreover, the J-integral value obtained from the PD model, at the absolute maximum specimen load, matched the corresponding EWF value.

Hot stamping of boron alloyed steel has become a standard in the automotive industry for safety relevant body in white components. This process allows the design of complex geometries with superior mechanical properties. Special tool design enables to manufacture components with special properties based on varying microstructures in designated areas. This is a challenge for finite element (FE) simulations of deformation and failure for multi-phase microstructure components.

In the present work, a laboratory scale test component with multi-phase microstructure is studied from blank to fractured component. Using different tool temperatures and adding an air-cooling step before transfer to the press hardening tool, the microstructure of the component is varied. By this, components with four different multi-phase microstructures are produced. These components are tested under tensile deformation until fracture, where force, elongation and the strain field on the components surface are measured.

The laboratory scale test component is evaluated using FE-modelling. The complete production process is modelled starting with the pre-cut austenitized blank, subsequent transfer, air-cooling, forming operation, and the final post-cooling. The resulting multi-phase micro structures are evaluated using manual optical microscope image analysis and compared with the simulated phase composition. Furthermore, the deformation and fracture of the manufactured component under tensional loading is studied using a mean-field homogenization scheme for the multi-phase composition combined with the OPTUS failure model. This finite element investigation is conducted taking the microstructure composition, shape and thickness deviations from the forming simulation into account.

The present work shows the feasibility of modelling methods of the complete process chain for press-hardened components with multi-phase microstructures, from blank to fractured component.

The present work investigates the fracture toughness of a thick press hardened 22MnB5 steel sheet, in order to assess its applicability for truck safety parts. The fracture toughness is evaluated in the frame of the elastic plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM), in terms of essential work if fracture (EWF) and J-integral. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) measuring techniques are used to measure crack tip opening displacement and crack extension. It is shown that EWF presents some limitations for thick high strength metal sheet applications, making necessary the use of conventional EPFM procedures. Digital image analysis has shown to be very useful in fracture toughness characterization of thick press hardened steel sheets. The differences observed between different methodologies are discussed and results are compared to toughness values of different AHSS grades.

Ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) has become a common material in the automotive industry during the last decades. The technique of press hardening allows modifying and tailoring the material properties of the blank in accordance with desired performance.

In the present work, a laboratory scale test component is developed. On basis of tests on the component it is intended to investigate the deformation and fracture behavior of a boron alloyed steel after different heat treatments. The tooling is developed to allow the production of single phase microstructures like martensite and bainite as well as mixed microstructures containing ferrite. Testing of the component is performed in a standard tensile testing machine with additional digital speckle measurements to determine the strain to fracture in the critical cross section. The initial geometry shape introduces bending in the critical cross-section during tensile loading of the specimen.

The aim of this work is to compare different material models on a component like level, including the prediction of failure. A finite element model of a laboratory scale component is analyzed using LS-Dyna. To compare different failure modeling approaches a set of damage models is calibrated to full hardened, martensitic steel. The deformation and fracture behavior of the component is presented in terms of load-displacement, plastic strain-stress triaxiality as well as in principal strain space.

Crashworthiness is a relevant engineering property for car parts. However it is not easy to measure at laboratory scale and complex impact tests have to be carried out to determine it. Crash resistance for high strength steel is commonly evaluated in terms of cracking pattern and energy absorption in crashed specimens. Accordingly, the material resistance to crack propagation, i.e. the fracture toughness, could be used to rank crashworthiness. It has been proved in a previous work by the authors, so the measure of fracture toughness, in the frame of fracture mechanics in small laboratory specimens, would allow determining the best microstructure for crash resistance parts. Press hardening offers the possibility to obtain a wide range of microstructural configurations, with different mechanical properties. So the aim of this work is to evaluate the fracture toughness following the essential work of fracture methodology for ferrite-pearlite, bainite, ferrite-bainite, martensite and martensite-bainite microstructures. Results showed that bainitic microstructures have high fracture toughness, similar to TWIP and CP steels, which allows pointing them as potential candidates for obtaining high crash resistance in parts manufactured by press hardening.

In most applied monitoring investigations using acoustic emission, measurements are carried out relatively, even though that limits the use of the extracted information. The authors believe acoustic emission monitoring can be improved by instead using absolute measurements. However, knowledge about absolute measurement in boundary restricted systems is limited. This article evaluates a method for absolute calibration of acoustic emission transducers and evaluates its performance in a boundary restricted system. Absolute measured signals of Hertzian contact excited elastic waves in boundary restricted systems were studied with respect to contact time and excitation energy. Good agreement is shown between measured and calculated signals. For contact times short enough to avoid interaction between elastic waves and initiating forces, the signals contain both resonances and zero frequencies, whereas for longer contact times the signals exclusively contained resonances. For both cases, a Green’s function model and measured signals showed good agreement.

During the last decades, the use of ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) has increased as its favorable ratio between strength and mass allows the design of lighter body-in-white while maintaining passenger safety. Modeling impact loads of components made of UHS steel requires reliable descriptions of the material deformation and fracture behavior.

Traditional stress or strain based fracture criteria are used in finite element modeling. A different approach in modeling fracture in components uses the fracture energy as a model parameter.

Fracture toughness is difficult to measure in thin sheets; a method termed Essential Work of Fracture (EWF) provides the possibility to determine the fracture toughness in sheet metal. With knowledge of the fracture toughness the understanding of fracture behavior and crack propagation in ultra-high strength steel can be increased. The obtained EWF is related to the fracture energy and can be used in numerical models as a material parameter.

In the present work results from preliminary testing are shown and a discussion on cross-head speed and strain rate in the critical specimen cross section is given. The use of digital image correlation provides information about the displacement field in the vicinity of the notch and hence about the strain- and strain rate distribution. Furthermore, the difficulties in reliable measurement of force and elongation in high speed tensile testing machines are elucidated. Issues encountered during the development of the high-speed DENT specimen are not limited to the specific geometry presented in this paper.

The present work aims at the development of a test specimen to obtain the Essential Work of Fracture (EWF) at high test speed. This work contributes to the overall goal to model fracture behavior and crack propagation, dependent on the strain rate. For the investigation, a high-speed tensile testing machine equipped with an in-house developed load cell and an optical elongation measurement system was used with a high-speed camera to obtain data for digital image correlation.

In the last decade, the favorable properties of the press hardening process for advanced high strength steel (AHSS) have increased the demands concerning passenger safety and lightweight design. AHSS show excellent mechanical properties from e.g. tensile test measurements, but it has previously been shown that results from tensile elongation or energy calculation of un-notched and smooth specimen are not appropriate to classify the crash behavior of steel grades. This is because they completely underestimate the post-uniform region from start of necking to failure. Another issue, the mechanical behavior of a notched or cracked component is different than a smooth and un-notched component. If the mechanical behavior in some loading is dominated by crack propagation, it should be rationalized in terms of the materials crack propagation resistance. Therefore, the evolution of the material property that controls crack propagation, i.e. the fracture toughness, is an interesting approach to evaluate loading and deformation of AHSS. Process modelling including fracture toughness depending properties gives valuable information and additional understanding of fracture behavior and crack propagation mechanisms in AHSS components. Fracture toughness in thin sheets can be readily measured through the application of the Essential Work of Fracture (EWF) methodology. The damage evolution law can be specified in terms of fracture energy (per unit area) or in terms of equivalent plastic failure strain as a function of triaxiality and lode angle. In this work, DENT test samples have been experimentally evaluated and finite element simulations of the DENT tests have been performed. By this approach the numerical study includes mechanical response of AHSS specimen including sharp cracks. In the numerical model, the J-integral was evaluated using the virtual crack-tip extension (VCE) method. From the comparison of the numerical and experimental results of load-displacement for different ligament length cases it is obvious that there are in agreement. Also, the numerically obtained value of fracture toughness J_c, is in agreement with the experimentally measured value of essential work of fracture w_e.

When finite element based fracture mechanics is applied to practical design, the fracture toughness can be used as design criteria. One appealing property of the evaluation of the J-integral is that it can be evaluated from the far field solution, which facilitates computation as many numerical errors arise close to the crack tip. Evolution of stress- and strain field, plastic zone, J-integral value and other mechanical properties is interesting to study with the combination of experimental and numerical investigations.

Hot stamping or press hardening is an industrialized technique with the aim of improving material properties by heat treatment and forming of a component in a single production stage. Within the field of press hardening the method of tailored material properties evolved. Components with tailored material properties possess different mechanical properties in designated areas. This paper presents an approach for modeling the mechanical response of mixed microstructures under different stress states. A homogenization method is used to predict the hardening of the material; the strain decomposition provides the possibility of applying a fracture criterion per phase. To validate the modeling approach for different stress states a set of samples with different notch and hole geometries as well as microstructural composition are produced. The combination of a homogenization method and a fracture criterion show good agreement with experimental results. The homogenization method is suitable to predict the hardening of the material with good accuracy. Fracture for different microstructural compositions is well predicted over a range of stress triaxialities relevant for sheet metal applications. It is concluded that the use of a homogenization method combined with a fracture model can be used to predict the mechanical response of mixed microstructures for a range of different stress states.