Property-oriented control of hardening and phase transformation processes during spinning and flow-forming of metastable austenites

Whether infrastructure or industry: modern steel materials combined with advanced manufacturing technologies enable the production of many high-performance products. Stainless steel components for aircraft engines, hydraulic cylinders for vehicles or drive shafts for helicopters, for example, are manufactured using the so-called flow-forming process. The use of a special, metastable austenitic steel makes it possible to influence not only the external shape, but also the properties of the metal. The research project is working on an intelligent flow-forming process to specifically adjust the properties of future components during the forming process and to enable tamper-proof marking.

The aim of the project is to significantly advance the technology of forming processes and to individualize them depending on the product or production situation. In this way, it should also be possible to manufacture components with highly optimized or completely new properties in the future. Particularly when processing certain stainless steels - the "metastable austenites" - effects on a microscopic level lead to significant changes in material behavior. Through clever process control, local properties can be deliberately adjusted to produce high-performance parts with an optimized hardness curve or to introduce a kind of invisible barcode by specifically changing magnetic properties. The project team develops detailed material and process models, implements them in real time and sets up the associated sensors and actuators. The research focus of the Fraunhofer IEM is the development of the control and regulation technology that makes the new forming process possible.