At the Unit of Processes, one of our main areas of focus in recent years has been the improvement of cleanliness in steels. That means removing contaminants and preventing the production of unwanted particles in the steel during processing. This will improve capabilities of steel and reduce wastage, both of which provide a direct contribution to sustainable development.
The current clean steel research at MSE started with the concept “inclusion engineering” by Prof Wijk two decades ago. Since then, the clean steel research at MSE focusing on inclusions as well as H and S refining has been done using: i) laboratory experiments (thermodynamics, kinetics, phenomena, mechanisms, 3D electrolytic extraction), ii) modeling (micro, CFD, combined CFD and thermodynamic, statistical), and iii) plant trials (in order to apply the results of experimental and modelling studies to industrial practices). Furthermore, research has studied the influence on clean steel on material properties such as machinability. Overall, this new knowledge on clean steel during the last two decades has been shared with the niche-oriented Swedish industry and community through journal publications (204), PhD theses (61) and life-long learning seminars. These efforts have led to two awards from IOM3 (Adrian Normanton Medal and the Stokowiec Medal). Examples of impact is that MSE has the most publications at 10 clean steel conferences and that the paper entitled “The effect of different non-metallic inclusion on the machinability of steels“ has been down loaded 20 714 times from the Materials journal. Future developments include: i) rapid feedback of inclusion characteristics based on the PDA-OES method, ii) coupled CFD and thermodynamic modeling, iii) use of first-principle methods coupled with CFD to determine interfacial properties, and iv) development of a digital research strategy for clean steel using a combination of CFD, HPC and Big-Data. A first step is taken in the recent European H2020 INEVITABLE project including. The overall long-term goal is to build a Swedish digital reactor platform for metallurgical applications.