Research Article
Garcia SL and Criado Portal AJ
Abstract
This paper tries to obtain the same mechanical performance with boron steel parts obtained by stamping, conventional quenching and tempering, with a subcritical annealing and tempering aimed at obtaining a dual structural steel. Thus, energy is saved in the annealing treatment to reduce the product temperature, and residence time, and the tempering treatment is suppressed. This results in process economics leading to the final product costs and environmental impact. This process is designed to equal the boron steel used in high-performance screws in the automotive industry, compared to dual structural steels used with for high manganese content and low carbon content. This is boron steel used in these applications and subjected to quenching prior subcritical annealing, can achieve the same strength and toughness values than conventional treatments.