Cold work steels are used for:
o Blanking & shearing
o Cold forming
o Cold extrusion
o Cold forging
o Cold rolling
o Powder pressing
If all areas where cold work tools are used, such as automotive, paper and pulp, general machining etc., the automotive industry amount to 40% of the total usage and is by far the largest segment. Within the automotive industry the cold work tools are mostly used for trimming tools. Other application areas are low-alloyed steel for holders and high alloyed steel for punches and dies.
Typical failure mechanisms in cold work applications are:
(1) Abrasive wear
(2) Plastic deformation
(3) Chipping/cracking
(4) Galling (built up edge) | 
Pressing tool for components
to electrical stoves
 |
The biggest problem with cold work is abrasive wear (scratching particles) and adhesive wear (micro-welds).
Adhesive wear is especially common on stainless steels in the automotive industry where a lot of components such as exhaust pipes and mufflers are made in stainless material.
To come to terms with the abrasive wear, the carbon and chromium content can be increased, however the material becomes much tougher to machine and wears heavily on the cutting tools. The steels for cold work have a high carbon content and can be hardened to a very high hardness and as the alloy content and hardness goes up the machinability goes down, which will be explained in the machinability section in this chapter.
| Example of material and hardness for different lengths of production series |
| Short production series | Arne 54 - 62 HRC
Grane 54 - 58 HRC |
| Medium series | Calmax 54 - 58 HRC |
| Long series | Vanadis 10 56 - 62 HRC |
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