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Vehicle weight reduction, reduced costs and improved safety performance are the main driving forces behind material selection for automotive applications. High strength steels (HSS) have demonstrated their ability to meet these demands and consequently have been the fastest growing light-weighting material in vehicle structures for the past decade. The evolution in steel technology in recent years has produced new grades of highly formable, advanced high strength steel (AHSS) grades that will continue to meet these automotive demands into the next decade. This paper provides an example of how these advanced automotive materials have been incorporated into the ULSAB-Advance Vehicle Concept (ULSAB-AVC) and how these materials enable cost- and mass-effective solutions that satisfy the increasing crash performance requirements placed on vehicle designs.

In the ULSAB Project released in 1998, high strength steels (HSS) were applied to 90 percent of the body and structural components, and a mass saving of 25 percent compared to an average of benchmark vehicles was achieved. In the ULSAB-Advanced Vehicle Concepts (AVC) Project, high strength steels are used for most of the components, but many of these materials are identified as ultra high strength steel (UHSS) grades of advanced high strength steels. These grades include dual phase (DP) from 280 MPa yield (YS) to 1000 MPa tensile (UTS), complex phase (CP) 700/800 MPa (YS/UTS), and martensitic (Mart) 1200 MPa and 1520 MPa (UTS) grades. This paper reviews how these materials are applied to specific parts of the ULSAB-AVC Class-C and Class-PNGV vehicle concepts and the reasons for their selection. It also compares the materials used in the body structures of ULSAB and ULSAB-AVC

High-tensile steel grades are being used to an increasing extent in the construction of car bodies with a minimum weight. A special importance must be placed on a particularly high stretch forming ability, since stretch forming is that forming strain to which car body closures are most frequently exposed. In an effort to meet those requirements ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG (TKS) has developed a new generation of steel grades with moderately enhanced yield strengths of up to 350 MPa and tensile strengths of up to 450 MPa. These new grades which have an excellent stretch formability are mainly characterized by a high hardening ability which can be further enhanced by an additional bake-hardening effect. Moreover, they are excellently suited for surface treatment including hot-dip coating. The new steel grades close the gap between the high-strength IF and the multiphase steel, thus completing to the product range of high-strength grades at TKS.