Can Docol® steels help with lightweighting in automotive design?

Yes. One of the main reasons for the growing use of AHSS in the auto industry is its ability to reduce weight while maintaining or even improving strength. With Docol ® steels, you can achieve 10–30% weight reductions by creating thinner and lighter components without compromising safety or performance.

How do AHSS steels improve crashworthiness?

Docol ® AHSS steels enable higher crashworthiness for passenger compartments and intrusion-free structures for EV battery packs. Through extensive simulation and optimization of AHSS beam designs, SSAB has achieved up to twice the crash performance (energy transfer) compared to traditional square tubes.

How does Docol® support in AHSS design and forming?

Through SSAB's extensive and long-lasting knowledge in AHSS – experts can support customers throught the entire development process – from design to finished product. Support can be given in everything ranging from part design, material choice to forming simulations and fatigue performance.

Why are AHSS steels considered economical and sustainable compared to alternatives?

Advanced high-strength steels are a much more cost-effective alternative compared to Aluminium and fiber-reinforced composites, and with the right design the weight difference can be compensated for to a high degree, at less than half the cost. Steel is also more suitable for recycling, making emission savings much easier compared to other materials. With higher strength, less material is also needed, making the emission savings even greater.

Are Docol® AHSS steels easy to weld?

In many cases, welding Docol AHSS steels is similar to welding mild steels – but with some important considerations, especially when dealing with ultra-high-strength or zinc-coated steels. The Docol Welding Handbook provides welding recommendations, examples of mechanical properties of welded joints, and tips for welding even the most demanding Docol grades. The guide covers best practices for the three main welding processes used in the automotive industry: resistance spot welding, arc welding, and laser welding. Download the welding handbook

Docol® mobility steel made to measure

Docol® delivers mobility steels made to measure. As your dedicated partner, we combine advanced high-strength steel, engineering expertise, and close collaboration to create solutions tailored to your needs. Backed by decades of leadership in mobility safety and a commitment to sustainable innovation, we help shape safer, lighter, and decarbonized vehicles for the future.

Our steel grades

Suitable applications

Sustainability

Together, we enable the decarbonization of mobility with advanced steels that help turn ambitious sustainability goals into reality. Delivering maximum quality with minimal environmental impact, Docol^® supports the next generation of lower-carbon vehicles.

Safety

For generations, Docol^® has helped shape mobility safety through reliable steel solutions. Together with our customers, we continue to advance safer mobility for the future.

Expertise

Dedicated to your needs, Docol^® combines engineering expertise, close collaboration, and advanced high-strength steels to create solutions tailored to your most demanding challenges.

Automotive steel applications

Docol^® steel grades serve specific design purposes and are chosen by designers for a wide range of applications and used by OEMs and tier suppliers in millions of vehicles around the world.

Car bumpers: AHSS steels reduce weight, increase crash performance

Bumper systems for vehicles can leverage advanced- and ultra-high strength steels to both meet enhanced safety standards and lightweighting goals.

Car seat frames and tracks made lighter, stronger, more durable

Car seat frames and tracks are taking advantage of higher strength steels to reduce weight and wall thicknesses while increasing strength and durability.

Car chassis components in AHSS steel

Chassis components need to meet several performance requirements, including crash worthiness, durability, peak loads, and noise/vibration/harshness (NVH) comfort needs. Advanced high strength steels — combining superior strength, formability, and fatigue resistance — enable chassis part designers to deliver high-performance parts with lower weight and in a cost-efficient way.

Cross members in AHSS for strength, lightweighting & safety

Cross members can further stiffen the car body, transfer side impact loads, and, in BEVs, protect battery packs. With their high strength, cross members made in AHSS and UHSS steels can increase both crash performance and vehicle responsiveness.

EV battery crash protection using high strength steels

EV battery crash protection requires that there is no intrusion into the battery pack — a particularly demanding challenge for the side pole impact test. Optimized profiles in UHSS steels enable an EV’s battery pack enclosure, cross members, and sills to work together to transfer and absorb crash forces to ensure the integrity of the battery cells.

Frame rails in AHSS for lightweighting of trucks & LCVs

Frame rails, aka subframe rails, for trucks and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) require strength, stiffness, and fatigue resistance: AHSS and UHSS steels provide all that, plus significant lightweighting advantages.

LCVs: AHSS steel for light commercial vehicles

Light commercial vehicles can optimize designs using AHSS and UHSS steels for lightweighting and strengthening their chassis, structural components and EV battery cages.

Side-impact car door beams in AHSS and UHSS grades

Side-impact car door beams are a key component to “survival space” in automobiles during a crash. Leveraging higher strength steels for side-impact beams offers car OEMs a cost-efficient way to achieve 5-star crash safety performance.

Structural automotive body components in AHSS steel

Structural automotive body components — also known as “body-in-white” components — continue to benefit from the high-energy absorption, low weight, and cost-efficiency of advanced high-strength steels. Collaborating closely with your AHSS supplier allows your BIW components to achieve optimal designs for both automotive performance and crash safety.

Truck cabins with reduced NVH and blind spots

Truck cabin frames need to be light-in-weight, while providing for sustained driver comfort. With innovative designs and highly formable AHSS steels, designers can use complex geometries to increase cabin stiffness – reducing NVH – while also reducing driver blind spots.

AHSS/UHSS applications for trucks and light commercial vehicles

Lightweighting the full range of trucks and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) isn’t just about lower emissions, fuel efficiency, or longer e-truck battery range – it’s also about freight efficiency: hauling more to earn more. AHSS/UHSS steels can help.

Featured automotive steel grades

Maximize your choice of AHSS/UHSS automotive solutions: Docol^® automotive steel grades include martensitic, press hardening steel, complex phase, high edge ductility, 3rd gen dual phase with high formability and more. SSAB uses pure Swedish iron ore and advanced milling processes to make steels with extremely clean properties and highly consistent formability.

Martensitic steel: excellent formability-to-strength ratio

Complex phase (CP) steels for  the highest hole expansion ratios

High edge (HE) ductility HSLA steel

Ferritic-Bainitic steel: strech edge flangeability for cold-forming

Press hardening steels (PHS) for complex shapes

High strength, low alloy (HSLA) steels for cost effective

Dual phase (DP) steel: excellent ductility and engergy absorption

Dual phase with high formability/ductility for crack-free cold deep drawing

SSAB Zero™ – enabling sustainable performance

SSAB Zero™ is the first commercial steel of its kind. By using recycled steel and fossil-free energy, the fossil carbon emissions are virtually zero, without compromising on performance or quality.

The fossil carbon emissions in SSAB’s production of SSAB Zero™ are less than 0.05 kg CO₂e/kg steel in Scope 1 and 2 of the GHG Protocol.

More about SSAB Zero™

Mobility steel resources and insights

Automotive AHSS Webinars

Explore and discuss topics like AHSS forming simulations, UHSS for EV battery enclosures, and 3rd generation high strength steel as an application-specific problem solver.

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Articles: steel design, forming and more

Covers the best practices in high strength steel automotive design, 3D forming, stamping, and welding, as well as the unique challenges of EV body-in-white design, fossil-free steel, and mobility trends’ influence on car structures.

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Download data sheets and more from Download center

Forming data and AHSS samples

Work with our technical experts early in your design process so we can help you select the best AHSS automotive steels for your forming simulations and sample testing.

Data and samples

Docol^® Mobility Insights on LinkedIn

Spotlighting the latest trends, innovations, and expertise in sustainable mobility and automotive steel applications.

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