Advanced High Strength Tubing
Today's manufacturers face a common challenge: how to reduce component weight without sacrificing structural integrity or crashworthiness? The answer is an advanced strength steel tube. Advanced High-Strength Steels (AHSS) represent an evolution in steel technology, engineered to deliver higher tensile strengths and improved formability far beyond the limits of conventional High-Strength Low-Alloy (HSLA) steels. As a trusted advanced high-strength steel tube manufacturer, Lock Joint Tube produces AHSS tubing that helps design engineers reduce wall thickness, cut part weight, and maintain the performance their applications demand.
What Is Advanced High-Strength Steel?
Advanced High-Strength Steels (AHSS) are a family of steel grades defined by their multi-phase microstructures. Unlike traditional carbon steels or HSLA grades that rely primarily on a single ferrite-based microstructure, AHSS grades achieve their properties through carefully controlled combinations of ferrite, martensite, bainite, and retained austenite. Steel mills produce these microstructures by combining precise chemical compositions with rapid, controlled cooling processes during production.
The result is a material that offers tensile strengths typically ranging from 590 MPa to over 1,000 MPa, while retaining the elongation and work-hardening characteristics needed for complex tube-forming operations. This combination of strength and formability is what sets AHSS apart from earlier high-strength steels and makes it well-suited for demanding tubular applications.
Benefits of Advanced Strength Steel Tube
Choosing advanced strength steel tube for your next project provides measurable advantages across design, manufacturing, and end-use performance.
- Significant Weight Reduction. Higher tensile strength means engineers can specify thinner wall thicknesses while meeting the same or better load-bearing requirements. This translates directly into lighter finished components, reduced material costs, and lower shipping weights.
- Superior Energy Absorption. AHSS tubing products absorb significantly more impact energy during deformation than tubes manufactured from plain carbon or HSLA steels. This property is critical for crash-sensitive automotive structures and safety cage assemblies.
- Enhanced Formability at High Strength Levels. Where conventional high-strength steels become difficult to form at elevated strength levels, AHSS grades retain the ductility and work-hardening behavior required for roll forming, bending, hydroforming, and other tube fabrication processes.
- Design Flexibility. With a range of strength levels and microstructure types available, engineers can select the AHSS grade that best matches their application requirements, whether the priority is energy absorption, stiffness, fatigue resistance, or some combination of all three.
- Corrosion Protection Options. Advanced high-strength tubing from LJT is available bare or galvanized, giving you the flexibility to specify coating protection where your operating environment demands it.
We Can Accommodate Special & Unique Requirements
Custom Tubing Solutions for Your Application
Varieties of AHSS: Dual Phase, Complex Phase, and Generation 3
The AHSS family includes several distinct steel types, each with unique microstructural characteristics. Lock Joint Tube produces tubing from the following AHSS categories:
Dual Phase (DP)
Dual Phase steels consist of a soft ferrite matrix with islands of hard martensite dispersed throughout. This two-phase microstructure gives DP steels an excellent combination of high tensile strength and good elongation, along with a high initial work hardening rate. These properties make Dual Phase AHSS tubing particularly effective for structural components that must absorb energy during a crash event. Common DP grades used in tubing include CRDP 590, CRDP 780, and CRDP 980.
Complex Phase (CP)
Complex Phase steels feature a fine-grained microstructure composed of ferrite, bainite, martensite, and sometimes retained austenite, often strengthened by micro-alloying elements such as titanium, niobium, or vanadium. CP grades deliver very high yield strengths and excellent resistance to edge cracking during forming, making them well-suited for roll-formed and welded tubular profiles where tight bend radii and complex shapes are required.
Generation 3 (Gen 3)
Generation 3 AHSS represents the latest advancement in high-strength steel development. Gen 3 steels are engineered to bridge the gap between the high strength of second-generation AHSS (such as TWIP steels) and the cost efficiency and manufacturability of first-generation grades like Dual Phase and Complex Phase. Gen 3 grades achieve this balance through TRIP-assisted microstructures that use retained austenite transformation to deliver both high strength and high elongation. For tubing applications, Gen 3 steels open the door to further lightweighting opportunities in next-generation vehicle and structural designs.
Industries and Applications
AHSS tubing serves demanding applications across a range of industries where strength-to-weight ratio and energy absorption are priorities.
AHSS tubing is widely specified for safety-critical body-in-white and chassis components, including A-pillars, B-pillars, C-pillars, roof rails, roof bows, and crossmembers. As automakers continue to pursue lightweighting targets and meet evolving crash performance standards, advanced-strength steel tubes have become a preferred material for structural tube assemblies.
ATV and Utility Vehicles
Roll cage assemblies for ATVs, UTVs, and off-road vehicles benefit from the high energy absorption and strength characteristics of AHSS tubing, providing occupant protection in rollover events without adding unnecessary weight.
Construction and Structural
Structural framing, support members, and reinforcement applications benefit from the ability to use lighter-gauge AHSS tubing while maintaining required load capacities.
Energy and Infrastructure
Components for solar racking systems, wind energy structures, and other infrastructure applications can benefit from the strength and formability advantages of advanced high-strength steel tube.
Available Material Grades
Lock Joint Tube currently produces AHSS tubing in the following Cold Rolled Dual Phase (CRDP) grades:
CRDP 590 | CRDP 600 | CRDP 780 | CRDP 800 | CRDP 980 | CRDP 1000
Additional AHSS grades continue to be developed across the steel industry, and LJT works closely with steel suppliers to expand our grade offerings. Contact our team to discuss your specific material requirements.
Specifications
Lock Joint Tube manufactures advanced strength steel tube products to a wide range of industry and OEM specifications, including but not limited to:
ASTM A513 | ASTM A1088 | Chrysler MS-264 | Fiat MS.50002 | Ford WSS-M1A368 | GM GMW3399 | Mercedes Benz MBN 11 250 | Rivian RMS-1021 | SAE J2340 | Tesla TM-2011
Our in-house metallurgical laboratory and testing and certification capabilities ensure every tube we produce meets the chemical, mechanical, and dimensional requirements of your specification.
Tubing Profiles and Sizes
Lock Joint Tube produces advanced high-strength tubing in round profiles and a variety of other customizable shapes, including square, rectangular, and specialty configurations. Our laser-cutting capabilities enable precision end-finishing and secondary processing of AHSS tubular products.
For specific sizing information, inquire with your LJT Sales Representative or request a quote.
Why Choose Lock Joint Tube?
With over 100 years of steel experience, Lock Joint Tube combines deep metallurgical knowledge with the manufacturing capability to produce advanced high-strength tubing that meets the tightest tolerances and most demanding specifications. Our quality management systems, technical services team, and multiple manufacturing locations across the United States give you the confidence that your AHSS tubing will be produced right, on time, and to spec.
Request a quote today or call us at 800-257-6859 to speak with a tubing expert about your advanced strength steel tube requirements.
Frequently Asked Questions
AHSS tubing is steel tubing manufactured from Advanced High-Strength Steel (AHSS) grades. These steels use multi-phase microstructures to deliver higher tensile strengths (typically 590 to 1,000+ MPa) and improved formability compared to conventional carbon steels or HSLA grades, making them ideal for lightweight structural and safety-critical applications.
Dual Phase (DP) steels feature a ferrite and martensite microstructure that provides excellent elongation and energy absorption. Complex Phase (CP) steels contain a finer-grained mix of ferrite, bainite, and martensite, which delivers higher yield strength and better edge-cracking resistance. The best choice depends on your specific forming process and application requirements.
Advanced strength steel tube is most widely used in the automotive industry for body-in-white and chassis components, but it also serves ATV/UTV roll cage assemblies, construction and structural framing, solar and energy infrastructure, and other applications where high strength-to-weight performance is required.
Lock Joint Tube currently produces AHSS tubing in CRDP 590, CRDP 600, CRDP 780, CRDP 800, CRDP 980, and CRDP 1000 grades. Our grade offerings continue to expand as new AHSS steels are developed.
Yes. Lock Joint Tube offers advanced high-strength tubing in bare or galvanized finishes, depending on your application's corrosion protection requirements.
LJT produces AHSS tubing to numerous industry and OEM specifications, including ASTM A513, ASTM A1088, SAE J2340, and OEM-specific standards from Chrysler, Fiat, Ford, GM, Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, and Tesla.
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