Supporting Lightweight Design: Virtual Modeling of Hot Stamping with Tailored Properties and Warm and Hot Formed Aluminium

Although in the past complicated and often considered 'exotic' process, hot stamping of steel is now widely used in the automotive industry and for some safety components it becomes obligatory. The hot stamped parts are used in regions where very high strength is required. But for some applications also ductility needs to be incorporated in parts to guide the absorption of energy under crash loading, for other the material thickness has to be reduced smoothly due to lightweight. This will be achieved by tailoring the material properties within the component. This new generation of hot formed parts is already standard in the market, but still difficult in the engineering. And the next one is already in start position - aluminum warm forming is planned as a substitution of the heavier steels for structural parts, but newly also for outer panels, where they have to fulfil all requirements on visible parts. Light, strong, accurate, high quality and warm formed to improve the formability of the material. This paper describes successful engineering methods in virtual hot stamping process with tailored properties and of warm and hot formed aluminum parts.