Heat Treatment Process and Application of High-Strength Steel

Dear Colleagues,

High-strength steels usually require heat treatment processes to realize their mechanical properties. Most modern high-strength steels use retained austenite, which occurs in different morphologies and is surrounded by various matrix types, to achieve an excellent combination of strength and ductility. The so-called TRIP effect occurs during the deformation of the retained austenite, resulting in intense strain hardening. Each high-strength steel group requires a typical heat treatment procedure—an intercritical annealing process for TRIP steels whereby a sufficient fraction of retained austenite is stabilised by isothermal holding time in the bainitic transformation region. The Q&P process is another modern method, in which, due to retained austenite’s foil-like nature, the ductility of martensitic steels is significantly improved. For contemporary 3rd-generation steels, such as medium manganese or low-density steels, heat treatment conditions have also been developed for optimal performance. Medium manganese steels also exhibit excellent low-temperature impact toughness. Due to the properties of high-strength steels, which allow for reducing the weight of the final parts, they are used in a wide range of applications. They can be used not only for car body parts but also other transport technology, as well as structural elements such as bridges, mining platforms, etc. In some cases, due to their chemical composition, they can replace materials where mechanical or corrosion properties are activated by a high content of precious alloying elements.

This Special Issue of Metals focuses on different types of high-strength steels, from the development of their chemical composition to the design of heat and thermomechanical processing for different types of applications.

Dr. Hana Jirková
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Metals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.