Wear behaviour of Al-Si and Zn coated 22MnB5 in hot stamping

Hot stamping of quenchenable high strength steels represents the most promising forming technology for the manufacturing of safety and crash relevant car parts. In such process, the manganese-boron steel 22MnB5 is homogeneously austenitized, formed and subsequently quenched in one process step, so that complex geometric structural components can be formed with an ultimate tensile strength up to 1500 MPa. Due to the high temperature, no lubrication is used during the process with consequent high wear and reduced service-life of the dies. Commercial available steel blanks usually present an Al-Si coating that has been specifically developed as a protection from oxidation and decarburization and, at the same time, has proved positive influence also on the decreasing the friction at interface between the blank and the dies during the forming. Although such coating is generally accepted as the only lubrication medium in hot stamping, its performances are considered not appropriate for a good lubrication. The paper presents the comparison of the standard Al-Si coating and a new Zn coating when applied to metal sheets in hot stamping. A novel apparatus to investigate the tribological conditions during sheet metal working processes is presented. In addition to the control of mechanical (i.e. normal pressure) and kinematic parameters (i.e. sliding speed, sliding length), the developed testing machine permits to reproduce the thermal fields and monitor the thermal conditions of the sheet and tool materials. Experiments were carried out on Zn coated 22MnB5 sheets in the range between 700° and 950°C and compared with the performances of the commercial Al-Si coating. The coating performances are investigated for different heating temperatures and soaking times.