PRODUCTS

DENT-RESISTANT STEEL

U. S. Steel's dent-resistant products are specially designed to deliver the benefits of lightweighting with increased resilience against dents resulting from daily wear and tear.

Ongoing weight reduction efforts have driven a steady decrease in the thickness and mass of automotive components in recent years. That’s why U. S. Steel has developed new grades of steel to resist the tendency of thin-gauge exposed panels to permanently dent, the result of anything from a hail storm to stones thrown off a construction vehicle, an errant baseball throw to an out-of-control shopping cart.

Dent-resistant steels from U. S. Steel offer a combination of formability and high yield strength that is not attainable with low-carbon, mild steels or conventional high-strength steels—these are advanced, bake-hardenable steels designed to have the formability requirements needed in most exterior applications.

DENT-RESISTANT STEEL PRODUCT

FEATURES

A bake-hardenable steel is any steel with the capacity for a significant increase in strength through the combination of work hardening during part formation and strain aging during a subsequent thermal cycle such as a paint-baking operation.

A combination of relatively low yield strength prior to manufacturing and high in-part strength after forming and paint baking makes bake-hardenable steels ideal for applications where dent and palm printing resistance is important. This material can be used in relatively complex deep draw or stretching operations. High in-part strength also makes bake-hardenable parts good candidates for downgauging to reduce weight.

In bake-hardenable steel, the amount of strain introduced during the forming process will largely dictate the final strength of the part. Since automotive parts—specifically exposed body panels—have a wide array of designs, there will be a corresponding disparity in the amount of strain introduced in these varying geometries. As a result, when using bake-hardenable steel, it’s important to design an adequate amount of strain into a part in order to fully utilize this material’s dent-resistant characteristics.

APPLICATIONS
  • Doors
  • Deck Lids
  • Quarter Panels
  • Fenders
  • Hoods
  • Roofs
TYPICAL PROPERTIES FOR BH 180 MPa

PRODUCT YIELD STRENGTH TENSILE STRENGTH TOTAL ELONGATION (%) N-VALUE
Cold Rolled 195 325 39 0.21
EG 195 325 39 0.21
HDGI 185 305 39 0.21
HDGA 185 305 39 0.21
TYPICAL PROPERTIES FOR BH 210 MPa

PRODUCT YIELD STRENGTH TENSILE STRENGTH TOTAL ELONGATION (%) N-VALUE
Cold Rolled 225 345 39 0.20
EG 225 345 38 0.20
HDGI 230 355 34 0.19
HDGA 230 355 34 0.19
TYPICAL PROPERTIES FOR BH 240 MPa

PRODUCT YIELD STRENGTH TENSILE STRENGTH TOTAL ELONGATION (%) N-VALUE
Cold Rolled 256 378 35 0.19
EG 256 378 35 0.19
HDGI 250 370 36 0.20
INCREASE IN YIELD STRENGTH DURING FORMING AND BAKING

DENT-RESISTANT STEEL APPLICATIONS


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