Increasing the tensile strength and elongation of 16MnCrS5 steel using genetic programming
[tore Steel Ltd. is one of the largest spring-steel producers in Europe. [tore Steel makes more than 1400 steel grades of different chemical composition. Among them is 16MnCrS5 steel. It is generally used for the fabrication of case-hardened machine parts for various applications (e.g., bars, rods, plates, strips, forgings), where a combination of wear resistance, toughness and dynamic strength is essential. These properties can be easily correlated with tensile strength, which depends on the chemical composition and heat treatment after rolling. In addition, the elongation should be taken into account. In the paper, modeling of tensile strength and elongation with genetic programming is presented and compared with linear regression modeling. The chemical composition data (content of C, Mn, S and Cr) and the heat-treatment regime data (GKZ or BG annealing) were used for modeling. The modeling results show that a higher tensile strength with improved elongation were achieved.