Investigation on induction heating for hot stamping of boron alloyed steels

Within hot stamping of quenchenable steels the blank is heated up to austenitization temperature, transferred to the tool, formed rapidly and quenched in the cooled tool. Essential for the complete process is the heating of the blank which is currently carried out with roller hearth furnaces. As a consequence of rising energy costs new and more time and energy effective heating systems are needed. The paper presents investigations on induction heating as an alternative heating technology. Results concerning the process windows as well as material characteristics and grain structure will be presented and discussed. (C) 2009 CIRP.