Abstract
Generally ferritic stainless steels are used for parts of exhaust system in commercial vehicle, because they have many advantages as low price and high corrosion resistant compared with austenitic stainless steels. Even though ferritic stainless steels have such various merits, austenitic stainless steels have been used to manufacture multi-layer bellows with complex geometry because of their high ductility. Recently, the mechanical properties of the ferritic stainless steels are getting improved and alternating austenitic stainless steel. In this paper, the possibility of mass production of multi-layer bellows made of ferritic stainless steel like MH1 and 443CT was studied. Tensile test, ridging test and corrosion test were carried out to observe material properties of STS304, MH1 and 443CT. Three types of prototype bellows were made using STS304, MH1 and 443CT stainless steels, and stiffness and fatigue tests were carried out to evaluate performance of the prototype bellows.
