Analysis, Prediction and Reduction of Emissions in an Industrial Hot Forming Process Chain for the Manufacture of Sheet Metal Components

Abstract

Increasing demands for reducing greenhouse gases drive the metal processing industries to a CO2-neutral production. A thorough understanding of CO2 emission sources from the stage of material acquisition up to the final component is thus necessary to improve the CO2 footprint of sheet metal hot forming process chains. To emphasize on this, an exemplary hot forming process chain is assessed to identify the impact of each sub-process step on total CO2 emissions and the savings potential of individual measures is evaluated. Moreover, a mathematical model is proposed that enables for the prediction of the product specific CO2 emissions as early as in the product design stage. This model is tested to calculate the CO2 emissions resulted during the production of an exemplary hot stamped sheet component. The results point out that the heating stage is responsible for the second highest percentage of CO2 emissions in the process chain next to the material acquisition. Thus, as one of the most suitable measures, a concept to recover process heat from hot formed components to the cold initial blanks is proposed and evaluated analytically.