Study of Transition Areas in Press-Hardened Steels in a Combined Tool for Hot and Cold Forming

Press-hardening, also known as hot stamping, is a manufacturing process for producing car body parts that must meet the high demands of their mechanical properties and safety parameters. Moreover, these components often require different mechanical properties in different parts of the component. This work presents the press-hardening process in a special combined tool where one half of the tool is heated and the other half is cooled. The cooled part has been 3D printed due to the complexity of the internal cooling channels. The aim of this work is to investigate the variation of the microstructures in the sheet metal and the mechanical properties in relation to the cooling process in the tool and to determine the transition area where these properties cross over. Two steels were chosen for the experiment. The most commonly used steel 22MnB5, and an experimental high-strength steel with 0.2% C alloyed with manganese and aluminium. A temperature of 425 °C was set in the heated part of the tool, and different holding times in the tool were tested. In the heated part of the tool, a bainitic structure with a fraction of ferrite and retained austenite was formed, while in the quenched part of the tool, a martensitic transformation was promoted due to rapid cooling. In addition to microscopic analyses, mechanical tests and hardness measurements were also performed.