New trends in austenitic stainless steel flat products for structural applications

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New trends in austenitic stainless steel flat products for structural applications

Schmitt, J.H.

New trends of austenitic flat products for structural applications in the automotive industry are reviewed. After a rapid survey of the new requirements of the users and of the main properties of the austenitic stainless steels, some ways of new developments and applications are illustrated. The main use of austenitic stainless steels is still for public transport applications (trains and buses) or for specific applications coupling high strength and high corrosion resistance (boats or chemical tankers). The recent evolutions in the automotive market certainly create new opportunities for stainless use in structural parts. The present developments aim at optimizing the forming properties, a high strength after forming, a good corrosion, fatigue and crash resistance of the drawn components. This is achieved by a fine-tuning of the alloying elements, mainly manganese, copper and nitrogen, but also by an optimization of the design and forming operations. Some new ways appear with the development of duplex grades and fine grain steels in order to increase the yield stress in the annealed state and to better control the substructure evolution during forming (as, for instance, the rate of martensite transformation). Finally, a larger use of austenitic steel grades for structural applications requires the provision of the design-offices with databases on mechanical properties during forming and after drawing and to promote the advantages of using stainless steel (lower life costs, surface properties, etc). (VDEh)