Steel sector technologists and research should take up projects on specific issues like development of high strength steel with adequate formability, on ways to control emission of carbon dioxide during production of steel and on engineering sector applications, said scientists and researchers from across the globe gathered here for SimPro-08, the second international conference on ‘Thermo-mechanical simulation and processing of steels’.
Held at the Ispat Bhavan auditorium here, the three-day conference highlighted the latest developments in simulation techniques and thermo-mechanical processing of steel.
It was organized by the Research and Development Centre for Iron and Steel (RDCIS) of SAIL in association with the Ranchi chapter of Indian Institute of Metals and the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society of USA. It was sponsored by the Union steel ministry and a number of companies like Siemens VAI (Germany), CBMM (Brazil), Stratcore and Dynamic Systems Inc (USA) and Concast SMS Group (Switzerland).
Attended by nearly 200 delegates, the conference plenary session was called ‘New horizons in micro-structural engineering’.
In addition, the eight technical sessions that followed covered topics like such as thermo-mechanical processing of steel, high strength steel, formable quality steel, line pipe steel, casting and metal joining technology. About 50 papers were presented and discussed.
At the opening ceremony, S R Jain, former chairman of SAIL, observed in his inaugural speech that the present meltdown had forced all steel companies to rework business strategies.
Scientists and technologists faced a challenge for inventing new, cost effective processes and products. Developing value added steel with tailor-made properties and having a high net sales realization was as essential as indentifying ways to reduce production cost to stay competitive in the market. These two strategies could help steel companies survive the current downturn, he added. At the plenary session on ‘New horizons in micro-structural engineering’ and subsequent technical discussions, four scientists deliberated on related but specialized topics.
They were H Bhadeshia from University of Cambridge in UK, Woolfgang Bleck from RWTH Aachen University of Germany, Dr Kotobu Nagai from National Institute of Material Sciences in Japan and A J DeArdo from the University of Oulu in Finland.
In the four technical sessions during the second day, experts from different countries presented papers on thermo-mechanical processing of steel, high strength steel, formable quality steel and line pipe steel. Delegates learnt about the research initiatives and their applications for development of different grades of steel for various end-users.
Specialists who presented papers included R D K Misra from Univeristy of Louisiana at Lafayette in USA, Elena V Pereloma from University of Wollongong in Australia, Pranay Chaudhury from Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburg in USA, R K Roy from Tata Steel at Jamshedpur, S B Singh from IIT Kharagpur and B J Duggan from University of Hong Kong.
