Many steel users believe that the steel industry is stagnant and has no new products to offer its customers. To the contrary, this month's feature article on advanced high-strength steel (AHSS) (page 22) illustrates that several new types or families of steel have been developed primarily to meet the increased needs of the automotive industry. As we all know, new technology developed for the automotive industry will quickly spread to other industries and filter down to Tier Two and Three suppliers. Some press shops already are seeing these new steels being specified for a variety of stampings. Since this column is devoted to better understanding of sheetmetal forming, the formability characteristics of the most common AHSS product-dual-phase (DP) steel-will be discussed in greater detail this month. Next month a fascinating type of steel called transformation-induced-plasticity (TRIP) steel will be reviewed. While the names are rather daunting, the forming characteristics will be discussed in terms that have been continually used in this column over the years.
展开▼
