U. S. Department of Commerce

The six important technical areas were selected by the workshop organizing committee, a group of experts from the auto and steel industries, and scientists from several National Laboratories. Customer demand and regulatory requirements continue to drive automakers to develop vehicles with higher levels of fuel efficiency and structural performance. There is a well-established need for additional research into advanced high strength steels (AHSS) to overcome technology gaps that are inhibiting the lightweighting potential of AHSS. In order to articulate the research directions needed, a workshop was conducted on February 9-10, 2012 in Southfield, Michigan on the topic of "Addressing Key Technology Gaps in Implementing AHSS for Automotive Lightweighting". The workshop brought together top engineers and scientists from automotive OEMs, steel companies, Tier 1 suppliers, government agencies and academia. The format included keynote presentations from industry and government leaders and state-of-the-art presentations from technical experts on the six technical areas deemed most important for this workshop. These presentations (where authorized by the presenter's company) are attached to this report.1 After the presentations, breakout sessions were conducted where technical requirements and gaps, as well as research needs for the six areas, were discussed, identified and prioritized. These needs were presented during the closing session of the workshop. These selections were based on areas where there were known technical gaps, which if closed would have high impact on accelerating vehicle lightweighting with AHSS. The selected areas were: Steel Development, Fracture, Plasticity, Delayed Fracture/Hydrogen Embrittlement, Modulus Characterization and Joining.