Notch Shear Cutting of Press Hardened Steels

Abstract

Nowadays, lightweight design is a relevant issue in the automotive industry and in the field of electric mobility. The utilization of Press Hardened Components (PHC) made of manganese-boric steels enable weight saving through the reduction of the sheet metal thickness with sufficient component reliability. Because of the hard martensitic structure, by default, laser cutting is applied for piercing and trimming the contour after the Press Hardening Process (PHP). Due to the high energy consumption, in combination with long cycle times, this process is cost intensive.Instead of laser technology, shear cutting would be an interesting alternative for Press Hardened Steels (PHS) but this process poses substantial challenges for the industrial application. In order to cope with the difficulties of shear cutting operations of PHS, this work presents an alternative for processing PHS. This new method is called notch shear cutting.