The current strong demand for vehicle lightening from the automobilesector requires flat carbon steel manufacturers to develop newadvanced grades capable of fulfilling the increasingly stringent technicalrequirements of this market. Arcelor Research has recentlydeveloped an ultra high strength Fe-Mn-C austenitic steel with excellentformability for automotive applications. The X-IPTM1000 steelcomposition is optimised to provide the best compromise in ultimatetensile strength (>1000 MPa) and total elongation (>50%) at roomtemperature. These properties are achieved through the optimisationof the TWIP (TWinning Induced Plasticity) effect by careful control ofthe stacking fault energy (SFE) and the final microstructure.

Iron-aluminium alloys containing up to 9 wt-for the development of high performance lightweight steels for automotive applications and for building constructions. Some of these alloys have a b.c.c. structure and have interesting physical and mechanical properties. Macro-alloying with manganese favours the formation of the austenite phase. Micro-alloying and thermomechanical processing including texture development will improve the plastic anisotropy properties and the strain hardening exponent.

Assuming an equi-incremental mechanical work in each constituent in an intermediate mixture law, this article shows how this assumption avoids any arbitrary fitting parameter on the contrary of classical variants and focuses on the interest of this approach through comparison with other modelling methods as Taylor, Sachs and self-consistent theories.

The ULCOS blast furnace process aims at reducing theCO2 emission of the blast furnace by 50% in two steps:
Decrease of carbon consumption by recyclingmost of the top gas after CO2 removal, which requiresoperating the blast furnace with pure oxygen;
Underground storage of CO2.
The first stage is essential to demonstrate the feasibility of thisnew process. It has been tested over a 6 week campaign atthe LKAB experimental BF in Luleå. The facility was adaptedspecifically for the trials (including the erection of a VPSAplant). Different operating conditions were investigated.In conclusion, and taking into account underground storage,the CO2 emission at the blast furnace was reduced by upto 76%. For the steelmaking plant, this should result in anet CO2-savings of 65% at the level of the hot rolled coil.

Energy savings are among the most important goals of steel users. But generally, the increase of Tensile Strength for a given metallurgy isobtained to the detriment of ductility. Arcelor develops new ultra high strength steel with TWinning Induced Plasticity (TWIP) effect for weightreduction and impact resistance. This product, based on manganese (Mn) alloying metallurgy, has a tensile stress higher than 1000 MPa fora total elongation superior to 50%. Properties of these new steel grades are reported, in terms of tensile and forming behaviour, weldabilityand fatigue.
Crash resistance is investigated by using a dynamic axial compression test and a dynamic three point bending test on structural componentswith closed and open cross sections. Optimised designs are presented for safety parts in FeMn TWIP 1000 and assessed againstconventional UHS steel. For each steel grade, the weight saving potential is estimated with respect to parts manufactured in high drawingability steel.


The goal of zero-waste is one of the main challenges of modern steel industry, which over the past 20 years has been committed to increase the recovery and the use of by-products generated during the ironmaking and steelmaking processes. Among the main by-products generated during iron and steel production, such as slags, dusts and sludges, slags constitute about 90% of the total. Slags are currently used in various fields (such as cement production, road construction, environmental recovery in landfill covers, as fertilizer and soil conditioner, etc.) according to their chemical features, which depend on production process origin. In Italy, in particular for example, BF (Blast Furnace) slag is used for cement production while BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) slag without iron (inert slag) is used as landfill cover, in compliance with Italian legislation. In Germany, BF and BOF slag use as fertlisers and liming materials has a long tradition. Although in recent years slag use has increased, the application for agriculture purposes needs to be further investigated. Slag can be used as a soil conditioner (high content of Ca and Mg), Si supply (improves the crops resistance to pests and diseases), P fertilizer production and micro-nutrients supply. Use of slags can affect human health and environment, because of heavy metal content, which can leache to groundwater or be transferred to surface water. The assessment of risk to the environment based on slag application requires further investigation. This represents an opportunity for both the steel and fertilizer industries to promote natural resources savings, CO2 emission reductions, landfill waste prevention as well as social awareness of sustainability of some industrial activities. The BOF slag has been shown to be useful as liming material for acidic soil amendment and it can replace commercial fertilizers. Different effects on crop yields and on soil parameters can be found, depending on soil characteristics and climate conditions. In Middle Europe, with humid climate, lime losses through leaching of up to 0.5 t CaO/ha have to be replaced with liming material to prevent acidification. Evaluation of long-term field trials with slag liming materials can give information about the impact of slag applications on crop management and the environment. In Mediterranean regions, such as in Italy, arable soils rarely show acidic characteristics. Alkaline soils from coastal areas are often rich in sodium content, due to seawater intrusion and irrigation with saline water. The aim of this research is also to investigate the application of BOF slag to these soils, in order to assess the effect of Ca contained in slag in balancing negative Na effects. This paper is based on the preliminary study and experiments carried out within an ongoing RFCS (Research Fund for Coal and Steel) project.

The history of the LKAB's Experimental Blast Furnace isbriefly reviewed and an introduction to the ULCOS newblast furnace is presented. The feasibility of the scale-up ofthe ULCOS New Blast Furnace - UNBF based on previousand new trials results at EBF are concisely discussed.
The historical trial results of using the EBF to simulate theconventional industrial blast furnace processes indicatedthat the EBF is able to imitate the commercial blast furnacesof different size and burden structure. The trial results canbe directly extrapolated to the commercial furnaces. Thediscussions regarding the scale-up of the UNBF showed thatbased on the EBF as well as the trials of the UNBF conceptit is completely feasible to determine the dimensions ofa full scale furnace and the process parameters for anindustrial scale trial of the UNBF concept.

Duplex stainless steels present simultaneously very diversified technicalchallenges and very attractive in service properties along withexcellent cost/properties ratios particularly in very critical markets: oiland gas, chemical industry, pulp and paper industry, water systems,desalination plants, pollution control equipments, chemical tankers.This paper reviews the 100 scientific contributions at the latestinternational Duplex Stainless Steel Conference DSS'07 in Grado,Italy, June 18-20, 2007.

Modeling activities and scenario building are at the heartof the economic analysis delivered by the ULCOS program.Two main objectives were followed in the framework of SP9.First the modeling team had to provide a set of coherentenergy economic scenarios using POLES model. Second,the economic conditions for the emergence of the ULCOStechnologies were analyzed. ULCOS contributes to theelaboration of contrasted scenarios that the steel industrycould face in the long term. To aim at these objectivesspecific tools have been used: POLES model for the globalenergy system modeling and ISIM model for the steel sectorbased prospective (Hidalgo, 2003). The most promising steelproduction technologies identified in ULCOS Phase 1 havebeen introduced into ISIM as generic technologies. ISIM wasthen integrated as a module into POLES modeling system.The main model outputs are the energy prices and mixes andthe steel sector balances with a focus on the technology mix.Actually the climate policy scenarios developed in projectallow making recommendations to the steel industry in termsof sustainable development but also in terms of businessstrategy.

Due to recent nickel price volatility, ferritic stainless steels,having no or very low nickel content, can be very interestingto stainless steels users. Ferritic represents only about26% of the total stainless steel production nowadays. Thepaper presents the ferritic stainless steel family: mechanicalproperties of the grade including drawability as well ascorrosion resistance properties. Experimental data of thenewly developed 20% Cr ferritic grade are discussed andcompared to the properties of existing 200 and 300 seriesgrades. High temperature properties of ferritic stainlesssteels designed for exhaust systems are also presented.

The multiple versions of electromagnetic stirring in continuous casting are described. For long products, linear or rotational stirring appears confusing, but is clarified based on liquid steel flow pattern and metallurgical results. Rotational mould stirring is the predominant application in billet casting. For slabs, butterfly type single and double strand stirring and rotational mould stirring coexist with different metallurgical purposes. Also, the evolution to higher casting speeds has required a new type of mould stirring that combines accelerating and braking functions. The trend goes to multimode systems.

An impressive number of papers are published each year that report on continuously-caststeel quality issues and new machine equipment; few of them (if any) discuss productivityand cost issues as they should be addressed by plant management, caster operators, andscientists. At Management & Quality Control meetings in steel plants, much time isspent discussing tenth of percent rejections at the end of the processing line. But,little time is devoted to discuss slab direct-application ratios where rejections areseveral percents and penalty on the overall scheduling and organization of the steelproduction line very serious. At IPC & SOP review meetings (Integrated ProcessControl & Standard Operating Practices review meetings), much time is spentdiscussing upper and lower statistical (6-sigma) control-limit diagrams. However, nomention is made that such diagrams only prove process capability (process repeatabilityand reproducibility) and not product quality. There should be no comfort if center line isat 10% slab abnormality code month after month! It is the goal of the author to draw froman approach that combines 30+ years of research and plant experience. Theresult is the opportunity to “connect the dots” and a wide breadth of in-situ processunderstanding. The paper looks at continuous casting machines as tools for maximizingcorporate earnings. It is about making good steel on the first attempt. Verysystematically and practically, the paper discusses disturbing steelmaking defects, theircauses, and how Electro-Magnetic Stirring technology can be used to eliminate them. Itdraws the attention to academics looking to validate or invalidate what they know or don’tknow, and provides in-depth, concise, practical explanations and guidelines to plantoperators who are less interested or do not have the time to assimilate highly-technicalpresentations and publications.

The mechanism of zinc wettability defects on high silicon and high aluminium annealed steels has been studied by transmission electron microscopy of specimens prepared from synthetic steels recrystallized on a simulator. Wettabillity defects on high silicon steels are associated with a continuous amorphous silica layer that forms during annealing. On high aluminium steels, wettability defects result from a continuous crystallized alumina layer thicker than 6 to 8 nm.

Lightweight steel-framed (LSF) structural elements in building construction provide a wayof increasing building sustainability. These structural elements present great potentialfor recycling and reuse, allowing the conservation of natural resources and theenvironment. When compared with other materials, these construction components alsoprovide other advantages: reduced weight with simultaneous high mechanical strength;easier prefabrication, allowing modular elements and higher quality control; shorterperiods for assembling the building on-site; no dimensional variations caused by moisture;and low cost. The high thermal conductivity of steel could be a drawback, leading tothermal bridges if not well designed and executed. In the case of LSF components (e.g.walls and slabs) it is necessary to take special care with the elements’ designoptimisation, with it being essential to use continuous thermal insulation. The buildingenvelope thermal performance is crucial to provide good thermal behaviour and energyefficiency, allowing a reduction of operational energy. In this paper, the LSFconstruction system is analysed in order to show its main advantages and drawbacks. Theassessment of embodied and operational energy is essential to perform a life cycleanalysis. The reduction of both energies’ consumption is crucial to increase thesustainability label. Special focus will be given to the mitigation strategies ofoperational energy in LSF construction.

An important task in the structure of the ULCOS program hasbeen to provide a fair and homogeneous comparison amongthe elements of the initial and the short lists of processes,which are candidates to become the ultimate ULCOS,carbon-lean breakthrough steel production processes of thefuture. Eventually, that information is being used to providethe rationale for moving forward in the selection of the futurebest technologies. The CO2 tool, developed within SP9, thesubproject devoted to measuring the sustainability of theproposed ULCOS processes, is one of the key tools workedout but also used to carry out this essential part of the ULCOSprogram.
The CO2 tool is a mass and energy balance model of acomplete steel mill, i.e. a steel mill simulator, which focuseson estimating energy consumption and GHG emissions of ahot mill site. It applies a standard analysis to all the processroutes proposed in the course of the ULCOS program, bynormalizing the size of the site (4 Mt/y), the nature of theraw materials it uses, the scrap input in the steel shop and anumber of other parameters. The tool is fed by process dataof the various plants lined up in the steel mil, which havebeen generated by more detailed models and also arisefrom experimental data, when they are available. The tool ismeant to feed a further tool that compares the production andAbstracts of technical articlesinvestment costs in various scenarios extending until 2050,with a series of mild to strong carbon constraints.
The structure of the tool as well as the results it brought aboutare presented here. The major conclusion is that severalsolutions offer the possibility to cut steel mill emission bymore than 50% compared to the baseline “best technology”steel mill, provided that breakthrough solutions are taken intoaccount, based on the uncoupling of energy savings andCO2 mitigation targets.

The increasing proportion of renewable resources in electricity mixes, thedecentralization of energy supply and the growing use of electric vehicles demands thechallenging development of reliable, cost effective and flexible energy storagetechnologies. One option are electrochemical energy storage systems with high specificpower and high specific energy density. One of the most promising electrochemical energystorage systems is the lithium-ion batteries (LIB) which are customized regarding size,weight, specific energy and specific capacity what makes batteries ready for operationunder different conditions such as emerging electric power systems, grid support orelectric mobility [1]. Even though the lithium-Iontechnology for traction batteries is not yet widely applied, experiments and first useexperiences show that it is a promising electric energy storage system for electricmobility. However, the environmental impacts of battery production, use and recycling arenot well understood. To gain a better understanding about the ecological properties ofLIBs material and energy flow analysis (MEFA) is conducted. The MEFA defines the possiblesources and consumers of relevant materials, substances, pollutants and energy flows[2, 3]. Thepresented study analyses the consumed materials and energy as well as the emittedsubstances and waste heat of different LIBs. The main focus of the MEFA is on theproduction phase and includes active and passive components and material such asmetal-salts, electrode materials, other functional metals (e.g. current collectors,casing, etc.), plastics (e.g. separator) and electrolytes [4--7] and on energy consumption aswell.

The multiple versions of electromagnetic stirring in continuous casting are described. For long products, linear or rotational stirring appears confusing, but is clarified based on liquid steel flow pattern and metallurgical results. Rotational mould stirring is the predominant application. For slabs, butterfly type single and double strand stirring and rotational mould stirring coexist with different metallurgical purposes. Also, the evolution to higher casting speeds has required a new type of mould stirring that combines accelerating and braking functions. The trend goes to multi-mode systems.

Concerns for climate change and declining oil reserves lead to a shift of transportationsystems in many industrial countries. However, alternative drive concepts contain to someextent critical raw materials. Since the availability of certain raw materials could bedecisive for the success of emerging technologies, concerns are growing about thepotential limitation of resources. This brought about a growing attention to the subjectsof criticality and resource security of raw materials by science, policy and industry.Four of the resulting surveys are described in terms of their framing of criticality,their indicators for evaluating criticality, and their rankings of potentially criticalraw materials. Critical raw materials are used in alternative drive concepts because oftheir specific properties. The focus of our work lies on batteries for electric vehicleswith special attention to lithium-ion batteries being one of the most promising candidatesfor energy storage there. Lithium-ion batteries use as major cathode materials lithium,manganese and cobalt, all of which are potential critical. A material flow model of theglobal manganese cycle is developed. It could be identified that there is a lack ofrelevant data for processes and flows. The lack of data impedes a comprehensive view andtherefore no final conclusions could be drawn, which advice the need for further research.Using manganese as an example, it could be illustrated how material flow analysis cancontribute to compiling relevant preparatory work that can subsequently serve as a basisfor a prospective support of a criticality evaluation and to inform stakeholders andpolicy makers about the effectiveness of various interventions to reduce the risk or theeffects of supply chain disruptions.

What environmental constraints will materials have to face in the future? Can currentmeasurement tools like LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) support the choices of material and adaptto these constraints to pave the way to a sustainable world? Are there some alternative orcomplementary approaches to enhance the quality of information for decision makers? Theaim of this article is to provide answers to these three questions. The society oftomorrow, in the second half of the 21st century, will be a society where the circulareconomy will play a more important role and thus will help reduce materials waste. This isa critical aspect of sustainability. To get there, the decisions have to be enlightenedand fair, because the decisions (or non-decisions) made today shape the world that futuregenerations will have to manage. Furthermore, Lord Kelvin used to say: “what you can’tmeasure, you can’t improve”. Therefore, these decisions have to be supported bymeasurement tools that will properly capture the stakes of reuse and recycling at the endof life of products. Today, LCA is the common tool used to address this matter. However,the present article has shown that LCA cannot incorporate the whole complexity ofsustainability. LCA is good at considering micro-scale issues, comparing one solution withanother, in a static approach. How can it give right directions to decision makers inorder to support the vision of a circular economy? The application of different standardsshowed that it is not easy at all and that recycling product at their end of life are notrewarded equally and sometimes not promoted at all. Therefore rebound effects leading tocontradictory decisions may occur. LCA alone is not enough to make enlightened decisions.It should be complemented by other methods. This was proposed in the last part. Based onthe IPAT equation, this approach tries to capture different aspects that are not addressedproperly by LCA, due to the fact that the functional unit is too restrictive, that thetime dimension and prospective approach should be more integrated, and that it shouldenlarge the scale of the analysis to the macro-economy and the socio-economy. It shouldalso recognize that the efforts have to be shared by different players including materialindustry and manufacturers, policy makers and society in general. As a general conclusion,we are convinced that tomorrow’s society will recognize the value of materials that arerecyclable and reusable, like steel has been for many decades. But there is still a clearneed to addressing, in research and development, the improvement of the metrics, combiningsocial, environmental and economic assessment, so that the sustainability value ofmaterials is properly measured. These are the objectives of the Sovamat Initiative and theSAM conferences.

The action of ArcelorMittal Maizières in the domain ofphysical chemistry of metallurgical slags and liquid steel hasalways been sustained. In particular, this activity gave birthto several models among which the cell model that describesthe properties of metallurgical slags (and of liquid oxideinclusions) has a special place. This model, along with otherspecific models describing the metallic phases, has beenincluded in a home-built equilibrium calculation code CEQCSI(Chemical EQuilibrium Calculations for the Steel Industry)to allow easy calculations by non specialist users. Severalapplications to steel elaboration will be presented. An insightinto the development of new models such as the GeneralizedCentral Atom model is also given. The application domainof this latter model is high alloyed and segregated steelgrades and the same formalism is also used to improve theperformance of the cell model for slags.