钒：改造未来

Vanadium “As Forged” Steels for Automobile Components

Abstract:

Vanadium steels were used for many engine parts in automobiles made at the beginning of this century including the famous Model "T" Ford. Advertisements for Ford cars in fact attributed their superior performance to the use of fine grained vanadium steels. 

When heat treatment furnaces with improved temperature control were developed in the 1920's quenched and tempered carbon steels and later alloy steels were adopted for these components. Today, however, fuel and labour costs have increased so that steels with vanadium additions which can be used in the "as forged" condition are once again the lowest cost materials. As a result vanadium "as forged" steels have steadily replaced the heat treated steels for crankshafts, steering knuckles, front axles and other components. 

Recent developments in manufacturing techniques and in alloy steel development enabled the modern vanadium "as forged" steels to be made with considerably increased strength, fatigue resistance and improved machinability and with greater uniformity of these properties to meet the increasingly severe demands of the automobile engineers. 

Many of the leading motor manufacturers including Mercedes, Volvo, British Leyland, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Toyota cars use Vanadium "as forged" steels for a number of components in many of their models.