• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.8 s.89
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• pp.562-567
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• 2006

Micro-alloyed steel or heat-treatment-free used in clean technology have been replacing for conventional quenched-and-tempered structural steels since the micro-alloyed forging steel was developed in early 1970s in Germany for saving money of heat treatment, simplified process, short delivery and good productivity. In this paper, ball stud assembled in steering system for automobile was selected to compare conventional process making heat treatment with new process using high strength micro-alloyed steel without heat treatment. The conventional process for ball stud was composed of a total of 6 steps including upsetting, forward extrusion, machining, burnishing and tread rolling with heat treatment and shot blasting. As opposed to conventional process, newly proposed process for ball stud using the clean technology without heat treatment is simplified such as forward extrusion, heading, upsetting, forming having a flange shape and tread rolling. Also net shape forming process to achieve specified process not to include machined step fur manufacturing the ball stud was applied to newly simplified process since micro-alloyed steel is difficult to be formed.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.8 s.89
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• pp.621-627
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• 2006

Recently, micro-alloyed steels which could eliminate heat treatments after forging has been developed. These non heat-treated micro-alloyed steels have several advantages over the conventional quenched and tempered steel for cold forging. First of all, long components can be fabricated with a better dimensional accuracy since bending of long forged part after quenching treatment could be avoided. And it is possible to eliminate two energy consuming heat treatment steps, which are a spherodizing before forging and quenching/tempering after forging. Therefore, more cost effective and environment friendly process could be designed. However, there is non-uniform distribution of strain occurred across the forged part, since these non heat-treated micro-alloyed steel use strain hardening mechanism. In the present study, it was investigated how to lessen non-uniformity and increase strength together for cold forging when a baking heat treatment is applied in micro-alloyed steels. For this purpose, micro-alloyed steels developed by Se-A Besteel recently was used for the experiment.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.1-6
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• 2012

This paper developed the chassis part as micro-alloyed steel with high toughness. The performance of micro-alloy steels are superior to similar heat treated steels. The strengthening effects of vanadium make micro-alloyed steels particularly suited for high-strength-steel applications. The disadvantages are that ductility and toughness are not as good as quenched and tempered (Q&T) steels. Precipitation hardening increases strength but may contribute to brittleness. Toughness can be improved by reducing carbon content and titanium additions. dispersed titanium nitrides (TiN) formed by titanium additions effectively prevents grain coarsening. Grain refinement increases strength but also improves toughness. For the chassis parts using high toughness micro-alloy steel, it had proven superior to a plain steel forging by static strength test and endurance test.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.132-136
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• 2009

The importance and interests for saving of energy and cost in industry has been steadily grown up. Therefore, process optimization to reduce the processing step and energy is one of the most important things. The micro-alloyed steel of which post-heat-treatment is not necessary, has attractive points for high strength materials. However, for the application of non-heat-treated steel to structural parts, it is necessary to confirm the reliability of mechanical properties. In order to estimate mechanical properties. The microstructure, hardness, tensile strength, compressive strength and tensile fatigue strength of micro-alloyed steel having 900MPa tensile strength has been investigated.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.213-214
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• 2009

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.513-518
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• 2012

Recently, automobile parts have been required to have high strength and toughness to allow for weight lightening or improved stability. But, traditional micro-alloyed steel cannot be applied in automobile parts. In this study, we considered the influence of quenching temperature and cooling rate for specimens fabricated by vacuum induction furnace. Directly quenched micro-alloyed steel for hot forging can be controlled according to its micro structure and the heat-treatment process. Low carbon steel, as well as alloying elements for improvement of strength and toughness, was used to obtain optimized conditions. After hot forging at $1,200^{\circ}C$, the ideal mechanical properties (tensile strength ${\geq}$ 1,000 MPa, Charpy impact value ${\geq}\;100\;J/cm^2$) can be achieved by using optimized conditions (quenching temperature : 925 to $1,050^{\circ}C$, cooling rate : ${\geq}\;5^{\circ}C/sec$). The difference of impact value according to cooling rate can be influenced by the microstructure. A fine lath martensite micro structure is formed at a cooling rate of over $5^{\circ}C/sec$. On the other hand, the second phase of the M-A constituent microstructure is the cause of crack initiation under the cooling rate of $5^{\circ}C/sec$.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.15 no.8 s.89
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• pp.609-614
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• 2006

Micro-alloyed steels(MA steels) for cold forging was developed to replace the usual quenched and tempered steel. MA steels have several advantages over the conventional quenched and tempered carbon steels. First of all, energy consumption could be lowered due to the elimination of spherodizing annealing and quenching/tempering heat treatment. Also, bending during quenching could be avoided when MA steels are applied for manufacturing of long fastener parts. However, larger amount of load is exerted on the dies compared than in the case of conventional mild steels, which might lead to the earlier fracture of dies, when MA forging steels are applied in forging practice. Therefore, die lift could be a critical factor to determine whether HA forging steels could be widely applied in cold forging practice. In the present study, authors have investigated the forging characteristics of non-heat treated micro-alloyed steel by using a series of experimental and numerical analyses. Firstly, microstructural features and its effect on the deformation behavior have been studied. Numerical analysis has been done on the forging of guide rod pin to investigate for the optimization of forging process and die stress prediction.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.235-240
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• 2010

The interfacial adhesion properties of enamel-coated, alloyed steels were in detail characterized by spectroscopic techniques. The surfaces of alloyed steels existed as oxidized states of $Fe_3O_4$. Therefore, the oxidized surfaces of the steels significantly interacted with the coated enamels for the adhesion. Ti-alloyed steel showed many micro-boundaries during thermal treatment and these micro-boundaries might cause the decline of the interfacial adhesion between enamel and steel. The depth profiles of enamel-coated, alloyed steels were investigated by GDS (glow discharge spectroscopy) and Ti component was found to be related to the interfacial adhesion between enamel and steel.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.583-589
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• 2016

In this study, recrystallization behaviors in the two-phase (${\alpha}+{\gamma}$) region of micro-alloyed steels such as Base, Nb, TiNbV and CAlN were investigated in terms of flow stress, microstructure and associated grain boundary characteristics. The flow stress of all specimens reached peak stress and gradually decreased, which means that recrystallization or recovery of proeutectoid deformed ferrite and recovery or transformation to ferrite of deformed austenite occurred by thermal activation. The precipitation of carbide or nitride via the addition of micro-alloying elements, because it reduced prior austenite grain size upon austenitization, promoted transformation of austenite to ferrite and increased flow stress. The strain-induced precipitation under deformation in the two-phase region, on the other hand, increased the flow stress when the micro-alloying elements were dissolved during austenitization. The recrystallization of the Nb specimen was more effectively retarded than that of the TiNbV specimen during deformation in the two-phase region.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.203-210
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• 2011

Bake hardening steels have to resist strain aging to prevent the yield strength increment and stretcher strain during press process and to enhance the bake hardenability during baking process after painting. The bake hardening steels need to control the solute carbon and the solute nitrogen to improve the bake hardenability. Ti and/or Nb alloying for nitride and carbide precipitation and low carbon content below 0.003% are used to solve strain aging and formability problem for automotive materials. However, in the present study, the effect of micro-precipitation of copper sulfide on the bake hardenability and fatigue properties of extremely low carbon steel has been investigated. The bake hardenability of Cu-alloyed bake hardening (Cu-BH) steel was slightly higher (5 MPa) than that of Nb-alloyed bake hardening (Nb-BH) steel, but the fatigue limit of Cu-BH steel was far higher (45 MPa) than that of Nb-BH steel. All samples showed the ductile fracture behavior and some samples revealed distinct fatigue stages, such as crack initiation, stable crack growth and unstable crack growth.