A Novel Electropulse-based Clean Steel Green Processing Method

Clean steels are fundamental materials for heavy industry and advanced equipments. The requirement for the cleanliness of steels has increased drastically due to the development high speed transportation and smart devises. The conventional clean steel processing technologies cannot meet the new requirement and are also energy intensive. The proposal will develop a novel processing method for the production of super clean steel with significantly reduced energy cost.

This project will increase the competiveness of UK steelmaking companies by providing a novel processing technology for the production of super clean steels at lower energy cost. The machinery and equipment industries will benefit from the availability of super clean steels to support the production of higher performance or low dimensional steel components. Other metal and metal production companies can apply the processing method for improvement of mechanical properties of their components. The end users will benefit from the more reliable and safer transportations whose parts, for examples high speed train wheels and airplane engine shafts, will be made by super clean steels. The environments will be benefited from lower energy cost, lower energy-related CO2 emission and lower waste production. The project will also improve our scientific understanding of electropulse-materials interaction.

Expected impact of the project

Economic, social and environmental impacts

13 million metric tonnes of steels are produced in the UK each year with an annual turnover of more than £4 billion and which provides more than 22,000 jobs. The electropulsing technique to be developed in this proposal will improve the production of super clean steels. These have high product value and are in great demand in the world market. The global steel production is over 1.3 billion metric tonnes per annum. There is huge potential for UK steel industry to expand when the leading technology is facilitated. Cleanliness is one of the most important parameters when assessing steel quality. This research will increase the competiveness of the UK steel industry.

Machinery and equipment industries rely on clean steels to fabricate higher-quality, higher-strength and superior-performance parts such as ball bearings, shafts, tyre cords and tools. Improved steel cleanliness will result in the production of improved-performance machines and components. Machinery and equipment industries produce 8.5% of total UK manufacturing value. This project will also benefit UK heavy industry.

It is expected that the electropulsing technique can also help to handle inclusions in other metal production industries. The basic metals and metal products, including steelmaking, constitute 11 % of the total UK manufacturing value.

The end user will be benefited from the availability of a more reliable and safer transportation. It is essential that components in "life threatening applications" (e.g. wheels for high speed trains and aero-engine components) should be of the very highest cleanliness and contain no inclusions. These super clean alloys and steels will also provide longer service life and constructive materials of higher quality. Most cracks in constructive materials are initiated at the sites of inclusions.

Steel production is responsible for ca. 4% of the world CO2 emissions, in which 80% of emissions are energy related. The proposed electropulsing technique will replace the incessant electric current used in electromagnetic stirring of conventional clean steel processing with short duration electric pulses. This will result in more than 90% electric energy used in cleanness operations. Also, electropulsing accelerates phase separation and reduces the holding time for steels at 1800 K for the removal of inclusions which will result in significant energy savings for steelmaking.

Further development of electropulsing technology will improve metal recycling, through the production of high grade steels from scrap. With existing technology, only low grade steel can be produced from scrap due to the problems associated with separation of deleterious elements and phases.