本论文部分介绍了高强度低合金钢在汽车领域有趣或新颖的应用，部分介绍了此类钢优越的机械性能和耐腐蚀性，但尚未发表。其中一些是在卡车车身和设备协会年会之前给出的。关于高强度钢这一主题，我可以获得的大量材料涉及各种用途下机动车辆的运营成本。当然，很容易理解为什么降低许可证费用、减少轮胎磨损和减少汽油消耗对车队运营商来说尤为重要，但在我看来，材料工程的许多基本方面要么被忽视，要么被忽视，支持这种成本研究。 因此，我决定不谈论成本，至少以那种方式，而是集中讨论我所看到的钢材的工程特性。 这些是各种金属的特性，对汽车和相关行业来说应该是最重要的，因为它们面临着在产品上加上商标的问题，而在美国，商标承载着早期标志的所有声望和销售价值。一款由高强度低合金钢制成的产品可以让你自豪地拥有自己的品牌。这对买家来说也应该很重要。 “高强度低合金钢”一词包括一组由15种或15种以上不同的化学成分组成的钢，这些成分由几乎同样多的钢铁生产商生产。 因为所有这些钢都是专利，所以对一种或两种化学成分进行标准化的尝试基本上没有成功。此外，在某些情况下，成功的高强度钢的化学成分产生于单个工厂或公司的全资或租赁原材料来源周围的条件。要达到这样的化学成分限制，可能会给其他工厂带来困难。同样，如果一个标准的化学限度足够宽，足以涵盖大多数生产商的产品，消费者将无法保证钢材在制造和使用中的性能一致。 但事实上，存在一组钢，它们的化学成分各不相同，但始终符合一组标准的机械性能值，并且可以通过标准方法通过标准工具制造，这给了消费者选择钢材的自由度，我认为这是前所未有的。 这些钢中有许多是完全可以相互互换的，或者与组中的其他钢完全互换。有些人在或多或少的程度上拥有某些优点，但在减肥领域，他们都是杰出的。 高强度低合金钢可用于普通碳钢的任何型材，但当然，并非所有型材都由任何一家公司生产。除了可用的标准钢厂型材外，还有可钉地板型材和所有类型的Yoder钢厂型材。利用钢铁行业提供的各种轧制特殊型材具有明显的经济和技术优势。 1953年，汽车工业消耗了323452吨高强度低合金钢，约占以下主要类别总产量的43%:结构型材2342吨；板，18950吨；棒材和棒材尺寸形状，802吨；热轧板213569吨；冷轧薄板74736吨；热轧带钢9282吨，冷轧带钢3771吨。这比1952年增加了65%。 为了确保高强度钢具有优越的机械性能，制造商利用几种合金元素的组合，故意减少钢中的碳含量，以提高可成形性和焊接性。在大多数情况下，包括锰在内的合金总含量约为2%至3%。

This paper which deals partly with interesting or novel applications of high-strength, low-alloy steels in the automotive field and partly with the superior mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of such steels has been presented in part before but it has not been published. Some of it was given before the Annual Convention of the Truck Body and Equipment Association. A great deal of the material which was available to me on the subject of high-strength steels dealt with operating costs of motor vehicles under a wide variety of uses. It is of course easy to understand why reduced license fees, reduced tire wear and reduced gasoline consumption are of prime importance especially to fleet operators but it seemed to me that many of the fundamental aspects of materials engineering had been either overlooked or ignored in favor of this type of cost study. Therefore, I decided not to talk about costs, at least in that fashion, but to concentrate on the engineering characteristics of the steel as I see them. These are the characteristics of the various metals which should be of prime importance to the automotive and allied industries because they are faced with placing on their products a trademark, which, in America, carries all the prestige and sales value of the hallmarks of earlier days. A product made of high-strength, low-alloy steel can carry your house name proudly. That should be of importance to the purchaser, too. The term high-strength, low-alloy steel embraces a group of 15 or more different, chemical compositions as made by nearly as many steel producers. Because all of those steels are proprietary, attempts to standardize on one or two chemical compositions have been largely unsuccessful. Moreover, in some cases the chemical composition of successful high-strength steel has arisen out of conditions surrounding the wholly owned or leased raw material sources of a single plant or company. To meet such chemical composition limits might work a hardship on other plants. Then, too, if the chemical limits of a standard were made sufficiently wide to cover the product of the majority of producers, the consumer would have little assurance that the steel would perform consistently in fabrication and use. But the fact that there exists a group of steels which do vary substantially one from the other in chemical composition yet consistently meet a standard set of mechanical property values, and which can be fabricated by standard methods by means of standard tools, gives the consumer a latitude in selecting steel which is, I think, unprecedented. Many of these steels are completely interchangeable with one another, or with the balance of the group. Some possess certain virtues in greater or lesser degree than others, yet all are outstanding in the field for which they were created-weight reduction. High-strength, low-alloy steels are available in any section which is available in plain carbon steel but, of course, all sections are not produced by any one company. In addition to the standard steel mill sections which are available, there is also available a nailable floor section and all types of Yoder mill sections. It is of decided economic and technical advantage to make use of the very wide variety of rolled special shapes which the steel industry makes available. During 1953 the automotive industry consumed 323,452 tons of high-strength, low-alloy steel or about 43% of the total production in the following major categories: structural shapes, 2342 tons; plates, 18,950 tons; bars and bar-size shapes, 802 tons; sheets-hot rolled, 213,569 tons; sheets-cold rolled, 74,736 tons; strip-hot rolled, 9282 tons and strip-cold rolled, 3771 tons. This represents an increase of 65% over 1952. In order to secure the superior mechanical properties which high-strength steels possess, manufacturers make use of combinations of several alloying elements and deliberately reduce the quantity of carbon present in the steel in order to enhance formability and weldability. In most cases the total alloy content, including manganese, will be around 2 to 3%.