Deep Drawing by Indirect Hot Stamping 2013-01-1172

Hot stamping or so-called continuous press hardening is a process to make sheet metal parts with yield-tensile strength up to 1150Mpa-1550Mpa. Due to the high specific ratio of quenched Boron steels, which is higher than those of aluminum alloys and magnesium alloys, the components with low mass can be made from hot stamped Boron steels. In current industrial practice, direct hot stamping process, which forms a part directly from a flat sheet blank, is normally used to make geometries with relatively mild deformation, such as B-pillars, A-pillars etc. In this study, indirect hot stamping is introduced to develop geometries with a deep cavity and complex form features. Since the indirect hot stamping develops the part cavity depth in cold drawing and then forms detail features in hot stamping, part with complex geometry can thus be formed. A rocker component is chosen to demonstrate the technology. The rocker component, which can't be made by HSLA350 without design changes, can now be formed by indirect hot stamping. Due to the dramatic increase of strength, a potential mass reduction up to 20% can also be achieved.