The automotive industry is currently developing various lightweight strategies to increase fuel efficiency and reduce harmful exhaust emissions. Advanced high strength steel (AHSS) panels are increasingly being used to achieve required weight reduction by reducing the thickness of the body panels without compromising the crashworthiness. However, due to the limited ductility and formability of AHSS, failure is often observed at locations where stress concentration is maximum during stretch forming or deep drawing of AHSS panels.
A micro plasma additive manufacturing (PAM) approach is explored in this study to locally increase the thickness of steel panels with minimal thermal damage to an automobile component and achieve selective strength reinforcement. To achieve this selective reinforcement, which is commonly termed as additive path work processing, a micro-plasma wire directed energy deposition (