Hyundai Steel and the Hyundai Motor Company have jointly developed a low-carbon heat treatment technology that has earned the New Excellent Technology certification.
The technology developers holding their certification
The Korean government’s New Excellent Technology (NET) certification recognizes technologies that are either developed for the first time in Korea or improve existing technologies, with the expectation of significant economic or technological ripple effects and substantial improvements in product quality and performance.
In their joint development of the low-carbon heat treatment technology, Hyundai Steel designed the technology and optimized thermal mass production facilities, while the Hyundai Motor Company contributed ideas for the technology and validated the parts manufacturing processes. By applying this new heat treatment technology to the mass production of automotive differential gear1) components, the properties achieved by traditional spheroidizing heat treatment2) technologies can be maintained, while reducing processing times by 78% and carbon emissions by 40%.
The technology will be applied to the production of differential gears for Hyundai vehicle models scheduled for mass production in 2025, including the Palisade, Tucson, Sonata, and Elantra. It is also expected to be used in the manufacture of other car parts, as well as heavy machinery, machine tools, and more.
1) Differential gear: A part that distributes driving force between a pair of wheels for smooth rotation
2) Spheroidizing heat treatment: A heat treatment method that improves iron and steel processing by forming internal carbide particles into spherical structures