Simulation-aided application of advanced sheet steels to automotive parts

To promote our advanced steel to lightweight crashworthy automotive bodies, the authors' group has developed practical technologies which improve the reliability of sheet-forming simulations from the viewpoint of material behaviour. For cold forming, simple-shear testing has been used to obtain the material data for the simulations of spiringback and edge cracking. For hot stamping, we developed the temperature-dependent forming simulations coupled with thermal analyses, computational fluid dynamics and phase-transformation models. We have also applied multi-scale simulations to understand the effects of steel microstructures on the deformation and fracture behaviour. (paper)