Manufacturing of complex high strength components out of high nitrogen steels at industrial level

High performance components, e.g., fasteners, nowadays are usually made out of cold forged and heat treated steels like steel 1.5525 (20MnB4). To overcome the problems of heat treatment, e.g., low surface quality, new workpiece materials for cold forging should be found to achieve the needlessness of heat treatment after cold forging. One possible material is given by high nitrogen steels like steel 1.3815 (X8CrMnN19-19). Due to the high strain hardening of these materials the process and tool design for an industrial batch process are challenging and should be conducted by FE-simulation. The numerical results show that, high strength tool materials, like PM-steels or cemented carbides, in most cases, are inevitable. Additionally to the selection of suitable tool materials, the tool layout should be developed further to achieve a high loadability of the tools. The FE-models, used for process and tool design, are validated with respect to the materials' flow and occurring forming force to assure a proper design process. Also the comparison of strength of components made out of steel 1.5525 in quenched and tempered conditions and steel 1.3815 in strain hardened condition is done. The results show that the component made of steel 1.3815 has a significantly higher strength than the component made of steel 1.5525. This shows that by the use of high nitrogen steels a high performance component can be manufactured by cold forging.