Cheaper and more energy efficient steel production Thursday, 15 December 2016

Researchers from the University of Warwick have found a way to make steel production cheaper and more energy-efficient, but exploring the use of belt casting technology. 

Steel continues to be the most used material in the world by value and plays an essential role in all aspects of society, from construction to transport, energy generation to food production. 

The ASSURE2 project, being led by Professor Claire Davis, aims to significantly cut steel production costs, and reduce energy consumption by over 300 percent. The belt casting process could also produce commercially attractive advanced high strength strip (AHSS) steel grades that cannot be manufactured using conventional casting techniques. 

Belt casting is a significantly lower energy production route compared to traditional continuous casting techniques, as belt casting is a near net shape casting process, producing strip that needs minimal hot deformation to achieve the required product thickness. 

Belt casting can also minimise or eliminate any reheating processes, reducing overall costs. 

The process can also produce twinning induced plasticity (TWIP) and transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) AHSS steel grades which are commercially attractive, but not producible via conventional casting techniques. 

The project was advanced thanks to access to the new Advanced Steels Research Centre at the University of Warwick, which allowed Professor Davis and her colleagues to simulate belt cast microstructures. They could also engage in dynamic direct observation of the solidifying steel at different cooling rates. 

Through these observations, the team demonstrated that the microstructures are altered by the higher cooling rate of belt casting, compared to conventional slab casting. Further beneficial modifications, such as reducing the grain size can be achieved by composition control. 

The researchers are establishing quantitative relationships between composition, process parameters and microstructure, taking into account the higher cooling rates of belt casting and the reduced hot deformation after casting to final thickness compared to conventional processing.