ABSTRACT

Boron / Manganese alloyed steels are produced today by several steel makers, and widely used to manufacture automotive safety components [1] [2], as b-pillars, bumpers, antiintrusion bars. In actual industrial applications, blanks are heated for some minutes to Ac3 temperature, and immediately formed in a cooled die. In this way only a complete component heat treatment is possible. A different approach is to induce not uniform mechanical characteristics by localized heat treatment. The opportunity to design structural steel car parts with programmable structural performances will arouse, consequently reducing the weight to resistance ratio, and contemporarily allowing designers more prospectives for shape definition.