Semisolid forming of 42CrMo4E steel grade

Reduction of production costs is the aim of many companies in order to become more competitive. In this field, one of the so called ‘near net shape’ processes, the semisolid metal forming (SSF), has revealed a high potential in terms of raw material and energetic savings. The lack of materials that result in good mechanical properties after SSF makes it difficult to implement this technology into the industry. This fact requires further thixoformability investigations on different steels to be overcome. Therefore, this research work, which is the continuation of [1], focuses on analyzing the thixoformability of the commercially available 42CrMo4E steel grade by thixoforging of an automotive spindle. Microstructure and mechanical properties evaluation has been as well carried-out to conclude, first, the impossibility of estimating by quenching and quantitative metallography analysis the liquid fraction of 42CrMo4E, and second, the great accordance of the mechanical properties of SSF component with the requ...