A Long Way from Basic Research to Ultra-high Strength Die Forgings

In the last two decades, in search for savings, new technologies for steel processing have begun to be developed, which would bring improvements in performance according to the requirements of designers and specific applications. The driving force was the automotive industry, which, in an effort to reduce costs, established several important directions in the sheet metal research, enabling interesting combinations of ductility and strength to be achieved with an economical method of alloying. But even the area of die forgings can benefit from the knowledge gained in the future. One of such projects, focused on the integration of the Q-P process into the production of ultra-high strength die forgings, was carried out by Kovárna VIVA, Zlín together with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology of the University of West Bohemia.In the last two decades, in search for savings, new technologies for steel processing have begun to be developed, which would bring improvements in performance according to the requirements of designers and specific applications. The driving force was the automotive industry, which, in an effort to reduce costs, established several important directions in the sheet metal research, enabling interesting combinations of ductility and strength to be achieved with an economical method of alloying. But even the area of die forgings can benefit from the knowledge gained in the future. One of such projects, focused on the integration of the Q-P process into the production of ultra-high strength die forgings, was carried out by Kovárna VIVA, Zlín together with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology of the University of West Bohemia