idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
The ongoing demand towards the application of high-performance steel and, beyond that, towards steel parts with tailored properties leads inevitably to a demand for improved metal forming technologies. Among these technologies hot sheet metal forming gains more and more importance.The micro structural effect which is utilized in this type of hot sheet metal forming process is martensite transformation hardening. Since a lot of technological questions around this technology still are not sufficiently answered and, according to that, quite a substantial innovation potential is still waiting to be recovered, actually, a lot of research work on heat treatable steel is carried out world wide. The focal points of these activities are the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden and the University of Kassel in Germany.
Luleå/Kassel. The ongoing demand towards the application of high-performance steel and, beyond that, towards steel parts with tailored properties leads inevitably to a demand for improved metal forming technologies. Among these technologies hot sheet metal forming gains more and more importance. The technological reason for that can be seen in the ability not only to improve formability at elevated temperatures but especially in the potential at the same time to control the evolution of complex micro structures during thermo-mechanical processing. This complexity includes of course the aspect of tailored properties by adjusting a varying micro structure over the overall part geometry.
Although hot forming constitutes a well known technology in bulk metal forming for several decades, in sheet metal forming this approach is fairly new. The first development in this field was started almost 30 years ago at the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden and made its way to a broader industrial application as so called press hardening or hot stamping since several years. With respect to the size of production facilities and annual output, Volkswagen AG in Kassel, Germany, and Gestamp-Hardtech in Lulea, Sweden, can be regarded as the international key players.
The micro structural effect which is utilized in this type of hot sheet metal forming process is martensite transformation hardening. Since a lot of technological questions around this technology still are not sufficiently answered and, according to that, quite a substantial innovation potential is still waiting to be recovered, actually, a lot of research work on heat treatable steel is carried out world wide. The focal points of these activities are the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden and the University of Kassel in Germany.
During first cooperation it became obvious, that the local expertise appears to be complementary. While Prof. Mats Oldenburg, Head of Division of Solid Mechanics of LTU, concentrated his research work on modelling and simulation of complex thermo-mechanical interaction and Prof. Braham Prakash, Head of Tribolab of Division of Machine Elements of LTU, investigates the special tribological effects under hybrid thermal process conditions taking into account high temperature friction and wear, Prof. Kurt Steinhoff, Chair of Metal Forming Technology at the University of Kassel, developed highly specialised prototype testing equipment to improve and optimize part properties and process efficiency.
In order to bundle this complementary expertise and, therefore, synergetically to establish a world wide unique competence network to meet the future challenges of hot sheet metal forming technology, it was decided to establish the Swedish-German Centre of Excellence for Hot Sheet Metal Forming of High-Performance Steel.
It is the aim of this competence centre not only to offer access to comprehensive knowledge and work infrastructure for industry related project activities but, beyond that, to reveal technological chances and challenges by fundamental research in coordinated programs and by technology transfer via the associated institutions, Centre for Metal Forming Technologies, Baunatal, and Centre for High-performance Steel, LTU, including the industrial research institute Svensk Verktygsteknik AB, Luleå.
An initial activity is to arrange an international conference on hot metal sheet forming technologies. The conference will be jointly arranged by LTU and the University of Kassel and will be held in Kassel in October 2008. The aim is to establish a conference series alternatively held in Kassel and in Luleå.
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contact
Luleå University of Technology:
Prof. Mats Oldenburg
e-mail mats.oldenburg@ltu.se
Prof. Braham Prakash
e-mail braham.prakash@ltu.se
University of Kassel
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kurt Steinhoff
e-mail steinhoff@uni-kassel.de
Centre for Metal Forming Technology, Baunatal
Dr. Oliver Fromm
e-mail oliver.fromm@awz-metall.de
Centre for High-performance Steel, LTU, Luleå
Dr. Magnus Eriksson
e-mail magnus.eriksson@ltu.com
Svensk Verktygsteknik, Luleå:
Lars Sandberg, CEO
e-mail lars@svenskverktygsteknik.com
Criteria of this press release:
Mechanical engineering
transregional, national
Research projects
English
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