Designing New Forging Steels by ICMPE

Abstract

Any production is based on materials. Material properties are of utmost importance, both for productivity as well as for application and reliability of the final product. A sound prediction of materials properties thus is highly important. For metallic materials, such a prediction requires tracking of microstructure and properties evolution along the entire component process chain. In almost all nature and engineering scientific disciplines the computer simulation reaches the status of an individual scientific method. Material science and engineering joins this trend, which permits computational material and process design increasingly. The Integrative Computational Materials and Process Engineering (ICMPE) approach combines multiscale modelling and through process simulation in one comprehensive concept. This paper addresses the knowledge driven design of materials and processes for forgings. The establishment of a virtual platform for materials processing comprises an integrative numerical description of processes and of the microstructure evolution along the entire production chain. Furthermore, the development of ab initio methods promises predictability of properties based on fundamentals of chemistry and crystallography. Microalloying and Nanostructuring by low temperature phase transformation have been successfully applied for various forging steels in order to improve component performance or to ease processing. Microalloying and Nanostructuring contribute to cost savings due to optimized or substituted heat treatments, tailor the balance of strength and toughness or improve the cyclic. A new materials design approach is to provide damage tolerant matrices and by this to increase the service lifetime. This paper deals with the numerically based design of new forging steels by microstructure refinement, precipitation control and optimized processing routes.