Recent development of steel sheets and electrical steel sheets for automobiles contributing to reduction of environmental burden

The present status and future perspectives of steel sheets and electrical steel sheets for automobiles are introduced. Concerning the steel sheets, the control for minimizing the deterioration of formability caused by increasing strength is important and the physical metallurgy for obtaining the appropriate microstructure of modern high strength steels contributing to lightening the automotive body is discussed. On the other hand, regarding electrical steel, the electro-magnetic properties required for motor core of hybrid cars are discussed. It was shown that the reduction of iron core loss at high frequency is important and can be achieved by purification of steels and appropriate control of texture.