Application Technologies for Weight Reduction, Improving Crashworthiness, and Shortening of the Development Period for Automobiles

This paper presents representative examples of recent research and development in connection with forming and joining technologies for automotive steel products at JFE Steel. To contribute to diversification of automobile manufacturing and shortening of the development period by automakers and create a joint development system for automotive parts, JFE Steel has developed forming, crash worthiness, and durability prediction technologies, centering on the finite element method (FEM), and implemented a system which enables material proposal/supply from the design stage. The accuracy of these prediction technologies supports material and part evaluation technologies and ensures the reliability of solutions.