Austenitic Stainless Steels For Automotive Structural Parts

One of the most important preoccupation of car manufacturers is to reduce emissions and hence to reduce weight of cars. One of the outstanding materials able to reduce weight of cars and at the same time keeping the same crash absorption and hence safety, is austenitic steel. Austenitic stainless steels are used in crash relevants parts of cars. Moreover, designers can use their very good corrosion resistance and their well known surface aspect for structural visible parts like wheels, cross members, roof panel or tailgates. In this paper, stainless steels for automotive use are presented in detail. First, their chemical composition and tensile properties are explained. Then, the U&A model for forming and crash is described. Using this model, stainless steels can be engineered into parts and thus stainless can be considered as a workable and predictable material for the automotive industry.