Grant: Automotive Partnership Canada Project

Hot stamping is an increasingly important part of Canada's automotive manufacturing capacity. In this procedure, highboron steel sheets, called ""blanks"", are heated to approximately 950C and held at that temperature for up to 5 minutes toform austenite. The blanks are usually dip-coated with an aluminum-silicon layer that fuses to the steel within thefurnace, providing short-term protection against scaling and long term corrosion-resistance. The hot blank is thentransferred to a die in which it is simultaneously stamped into shape and quenched, thereby forming a uniformlymartensiticpart of very high hardness and yield strength. Hot stamping produces automotive parts having superior crashperformance with less material and in less time compared to other fabrication techniques, dramatically reducingmanufacturing costs, and producing safer, as well as lighter, more fuel-efficient cars.Recent innovations in hot stamping have focused mainly on improving die technology, but highly-controlled blankheating is also essential to achieve the homogeneous hardness and tensile strength needed for crash performance, andthe desired protective coating thickness to preserve part weldability for subsequent assembly. Inhomogeneous heatingresults in defective parts, which must either be corrected through expensive processes like laser-cutting or are simplydiscarded.The proposed research is focused on developing heat transfer models of roller hearth and low-profile batch furnacespresently used by Cosma International, Canada's premier Tier 1 automotive parts supplier. The models will then be usedfor design optimization and online control of the furnace operating parameters, thereby improving process efficiency(parts per minute) and part quality. The heat transfer models will also permit Cosma to modify the furnace parameter toaccount for changes to process variables, blank geometries and blank materials. This, in turn, will provide greaterprocess flexibility and significantly improve productivity. Finally, in the longer term, the heat transfer models will guideCosma's acquisition and development of new heating technologies.