NANO HITEN™: World's First Nanotech High-Strength Hot-Rolled Steel Sheets For Automobile Parts

High-end steel sheets have come to be used extensively in automobile. Recently, in order to further reduce weight and improve crashworthiness, demand has risen for higher strength steel. JFE Holdings successfully developed a new higher strength steel with excellent stretch flange formability using nanometer-sized carbides that are ten times finer than those of conventional steels. This steel, named "NANO HITEN™," is the first high strength automotive steel to use nanotechnology.

The main technique in the manufacturing process for the new steel is the combining of the ferrite matrix and the fine carbides. Generally, fine carbides coarsen easily in a ferrite matrix. JFE successfully achieved fine carbide retention in a ferrite matrix during the manufacturing process. The new technique has made it possible to exhibit both high strength and excellent formability.

"NANO HITEN™ has won many prizes, and in March 2008 received Japan's 21st Century Encouragement of Innovation Prize, a national commendation. "NANO HITEN™ has been adopted as a material for automobile suspensions and crashworthy equipment, and its applications are expected to increase in the future.