Steel for Premium Hyundai Motor Models
Hyundai Steel announced on Feb. 10 that it has succeeded in volume production of 1.8 Gigapascal (GPa) premium hot stamping steel for the first time in the world.
The company developed the new steel product in cooperation with the Hyundai Kia Namyang R&D Center.
Hyundai Steel is supplying the new steel product for an electric vehicle version of Hyundai Motor’s Genesis G80 and the new Genesis G90. It started supplying the new product to Hyundai Motor Co. in early 2021 and will supply 145,000 sheets of steel every year from 2022. This is an amount that can produce about 30,000 electric vehicles.
The new steel has the advantage of not only lightening vehicles but securing passenger safety in the event of a car crash. It has improved tensile strength by 20 percent compared to 1.5 GPa hot stamping steel. It can make parts about 10 percent lighter.
A typical hot stamping method heats steel sheets in a heating furnace to a high temperature of 900 degrees Celsius or higher, puts them in a mold, and cools them rapidly to manufacture parts. Hyundai Steel, the Hyundai Motor and Kia Namyang Research Institute’s Basic Materials Research Center developed a specialized steelmaking method that lowered the temperature of a heating furnace by more than 50℃, breaking away from the existing method. They applied it to production of parts. In addition, this method prevented hydrogen from penetrating steel sheets, preventing internal cracks. This finally enabled Hyundai Steel to produce steel sheets resistant to corrosion with stronger weldability.