The Effect of Cooling Rate on Mechanical Properties of 22MnB5 Steel Sheet during Hot Press Forming

There has been a growing usage of high strength steels (HSS), particularly in automobile applications mainly as structural parts in view of their light weight and high strength properties. These materials are also being considered for dynamic applications. However, the multi-phase microstructure, which is at the base of the strengthening mechanisms in most of these steels, leads to unacceptably high stresses during forming and significant springback phenomena, thus making traditional sheet metal forming technologies unsuitable. To avoid the disadvantages, a new process method was introduced – Hot Press Forming. Hot press forming (HPF) process is a forming method which can provide various advantages such as excellent mechanical properties and formability, good weldability and little springback. Here, the experiment parameters which include locations of the cooling holes and the flow rate of the cooling water play an important role in the HPF process. In this paper, the Al-Si coated boron steel sheet was researched by heating it up to 930oC for 5 min and formed by a hydraulic press. In this study, microstructural evolutions and the associated mechanical properties were investigated in terms of the flow rates of the cooling water.