Effect of Pulsed Electric Current on the Tensile Properties of DP Type Ultra-High Strength Steel Sheets

Although ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) sheets with tensile stress above 1.0 GPa have a great attention in the automotive industries for reducing the weight and improving fuel efficiency of auto-body, the poor formability of UHSS sheets is one of the main factors hindering their industrial application. Enhancing the formability is a very important and challenging problem to both automotive and manufacturing engineers. In this study, the electro-plastic effect, which is first discovered in 1960s, of ultra-high strength steel sheets is investigated to improve the formability. To begin with, a test system is built up to carry out the tensile test with heavy electric current flowing through the specimen. The evolutions of the flow stress and the electric resistivity are obtained using this test system. The significant decrease in the flow stress caused by the heavy flowing through current is observed.