Fatigue design of structures for high temperature serviceresorts to modelling based on elasto-viscoplasticity constitutivelaws. The new model describes complex anisothermal cyclicloadings, accounting for viscosity on a large range of strain.The new constitutive law that has been developed for nodularcast iron, is intended for the design of automotive parts forhigh temperature service.

The Arvedi Endless Strip Production plant to be startedin Cremona, Italy, is presented. The design and plantconfiguration of this facility will allow fully-continuous castingand, for the first time in the world, endless rolling of highqualitystrip in a wide range of steel grades.

The crash performance improvements achieved by using PressHardened Steel (PHS) based laser welded blanks are reported.The interest of using a dedicated welding process to avoidexcessive AlSi coating dilution is discussed. In-use propertiesanalysis demonstrates the interest of this concept. Case studiesare performed on door-ring and rear rails to demonstratethe strong potential in terms of weight saving and crashperformance.

The transformation model and the model-predictive coolingsectioncontrol system not only have decisive advantageswhen it comes to the production of multiphase steels; thequality of other materials such as highly carbonized steels,tool steels, transformer sheeting and many other materials isalso improved.
Especially for older plants with many restrictions andlimitations, the new cooling-section automation system allowsfor flexible manufacture of modern steel grades. Although theimplementation of the micro structure target cooling systemalone may result already in the required flexibility and quality,additionally by small mechanical modifications a plant maybe brought to its peak-performance being ready for thechallenges in future.

Tensile tests on a ultra high strength steel under in situ X raytomography made it possible to observe and to quantify 3Ddamage of this material. The analysis of the data gives accessto the main features of cavities (density and size) as well as localstrains and triaxiality within the whole tensile specimen. Basedon these results, a new damage model has been put forwardthat is noticeable by integrating cavity nucleation into the classicalRice and Tracey approach. The predictions of the newmodel fit significantly better with the experimental results.