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The need to simultaneously reduce vehicle emissions and increase the safety of passengers is encouraging the automotive industry to incorporate new technologies and materials into today's vehicles. To remain competitive, the steel industry has developed steel grades with increased energy absorbing properties allowing down gauging of body in white components to address the competition from alternative materials such as aluminium alloys and composites. Two of the more important developments are the introduction of dual phase (DP) and transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) grades for the automotive industry. These grades offer superior strength/ formability and work hardening properties compared to conventional high strength grades of similar tensile strength. Utilising thinner gauge components with increased energy absorbing properties would permit addressing the mass/safety issues by the automotive industry. This paper relates the crash performance of a range of both commercial and experimental DP and TRIP grades. Dynamic tensile testing was performed at low and very high strain rates within the range of 0 . 001-200 s 21 , to allow an extensive analysis of the effect of strain rate on the material properties. Crash testing was also performed on closed top hat sections at low, medium and high strain rates and the results compared to the dynamically tested tensile specimens. This study helped clarify the enhanced performance offered by high strength DP and TRIP strip steel grades during dynamic tensile testing and impact loading conditions. This advantageous behaviour is attributed to the favourable microconstituents present in these novel grades and their deformation characteristics. This paper concentrates only on the crash properties measured from dynamic tensile tests. The microstructural analysis is presented in a separate publication. 1

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Understanding the mechanisms of weld growth during resistance spot welding is a prerequisite for the development of optimum welding conditions which ensure high levels of joint quality in autobody manufacture. This study compared the heat development/weld growth of double and triple sheet lap joints as a means of understanding the role of welding conditions, sheet thickness configuration, and physical material properties on joint microstructure and performance. High temperature heat patterns have been determined using metallographic and thermographic techniques for double and triple sheet lap joints in uncoated low carbon steel. In the case of double sheet joints, initial heat generation and weld nugget formation was observed to occur where the resistance to the flow of current was the greatest, i.e. at the sheet/sheet interface. This was also the case for heat generation in triple sheet joints, but in this more complex case weld nugget formation was dependent on sheet thickness and joint configuration. Furthermore, the incubation period to weld nugget formation was dependent on total joint thickness with a longer weld time required for joints of greater thickness. For non-uniform triple sheet joints, heating was observed to be concentrated around the thinnest sheet as a result of the way heat was dissipated by the steel substrate.

As a result of their unique combination of strength and ductility dual phase steels play an important role in reducing weight in automobile components and improving crashworthiness. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the crash performance of dual phase steels, as defined by the influence of low and high strain deformation rates (0 . 001 s 21 and 100 s 21 respectively), on the tensile and work hardening properties of a range of commercial dual phase products. The objective is to establish whether dual phase steels maintain their desirable mechanical property characteristics of low yield strength, high tensile strength and high work hardening rates during plastic deformation under the application of a high strain rate loading. The results confirmed that the yield/proof strength and tensile strength increased with increasing volume fraction of second phase constituents and increasing strain rate. In particular, a dual phase steel with a microstructure consisting of a significant volume fraction (.10-15%) of additional second phase material (bainite) is shown to display superior energy absorption properties. However, this is accompanied by poor ductility and work hardening characteristics.