[en] Metallurgy as a science discipline has been established from the beginning of stone-age. It is imperative to note as we have progressed we have added facets of material science to it and the field has evolved into a discipline of engineering. From science fiction to reality the inherent inter-disciplinary nature of this branch sets up the need of its education and training. There have been several instances in when the pivot of development has completely changed due to advancement in material science and metallurgy whether it is semiconductor industry or space industry. In this paper, we have reviewed the scope and development of this discipline in India detailing through the course of history to the present status. (paper)

[en] The article presents the results of assessment of the professional performance of engineers working in the iron and steel industry. A competence-based profile of highly-qualified professionals has been built. The study of the competences of the iron and steel industry engineers has shown that their knowledge and skills may be mobilized to solve professional tasks. (paper)

[en] Steel making processes are continuously improved in order to attend the increasing requirements of the cleanness of the liquid metal. At the refining stages, as deoxidation and desulphuration, the formation of inclusions of oxides and sulphides is promoted, which on the other hand, are the most frequent inclusions. In this work a mathematical simulator of the precipitation and chemical composition of non-metallic inclusions at different steps of the steel making process is presented. To this purpose, it is assumed that inclusions formed by reoxidation can be simulated by increasing arbitrarily the oxygen levels consumed by the residual elements (aluminium, calcium, etc) and starting the chemical reaction with less powerful deoxidants (silicium and manganese). Accordingly, different operative conditions can be simulated. Numerical predictions are compared with experimental results of industrial trials, as well as results included in the bibliography. (Author) 7 refs

[en] The environmental noise and earplug usage in metallurgical industry can easily compromise the information transmission among workers, which increases the risk of accidents. Therefore, in the context of steel rolling operation, developing a wearable device that can transmit instructions through graphical language is necessary to replace the traditional form of body communication. Based on field investigation, questionnaire survey, and in-depth interview, the communication demands of front-line operators were acquired, and information about working site, working language, and communication gestures was collected. The functional operation process and electronic product components were selected based on the wearability, displaying effects, and environmental applicability of image transmission carriers. An intelligent wearable device combining gesture and touch screen controls was designed and further developed. The device is easily put on and taken off, possesses high flexibility, and allows natural interactions. This design minimizes the communication difficulty caused by noise during steel rolling operation, and ensures that information, in required languages, can accurately transmit towards different regions of the metallurgical industry through visual information transmission. (paper)

No abstract available

[en] Fully automatic radiographic testing of cast light metal components is a state of the art technology. The contribution describes its application in weld testing. A new method for evaluating X-rays of welds is presented which were tested using an innovative X-ray camera with maximum spatial resolution and a wide range of grey values. Further, a novel concept for handling test objects significantly shortens testing times. The pipes are not moved longitudinally; instead, the longitudinal motion is made by the X-ray emitter and sensor, which reduces the testing time by up to 30 percent. The specially developed X-ray detector has a sensitive surface of 200 mm x 50 mm with a total of 4.2 million pixels. Neither the evaluation electronics nor the light-sensitive camera chip are exposed to the direct X-radiation so that no damage will occur at photoenergies up to at least 250 keV. Many tests, e.g. according to EN 13068 and EN 462-5, have shown that the image quality in general and especially the local resolution exceeds the specifications of the EN 584 standard on weld testing with X-ray films. The pictures taken by the camera serve as input data for fully automatic evaluation. All stages of image processing implement 16-bit digitalisation depth in order to make use of the high dynamic range of gray value images. This means that in the whole processing chain, there will be no loss of information from downscaling of the gray values. In the first stage of image processing, the gray values are transformed into penetrated material thicknesses in preparation of the measurement of fault length in the direction of incidence at a later stage. In the next stage, external boundaries and the middle of the weld are detected, followed by an adaptive filtering stage. Additionally, information on the accurate location of the weld is transmitted to the control system of the mechanical parts, so that optimum positioning of the weld with respect to the camera is ensured. The adaptive filter can detect defects like cavities, cracks or inclusions. Finally, the characteristics of the detected defects are compared with the specifications of the quality standards. The results, together with the original image data of the pipe, are archived electronically and stored falisfication-proof on DVD. (orig.)

[en] The cycling and static strengths of a wide range of high-strength steels have been experimentally tested. Correlation between the three parameters-microplastic deformation, strain hardening coefficient, and the slope of the curve to the axis of load cycles-has been established

[en] In many European countries infrastructure, -road as well as railway infrastructure-, needs intensive investments to follow the growing demands of mobility and goods traffic. Steel or steel composite bridges offer in this context viable and very sustainable solutions. Due to its unlimited recyclability steel can in general be seen as the ideal material for such sustainable constructions, but especially when designers or fabricators exploit the nowadays available possibilities of steel industry very cost-efficient and remarkable constructions are realizable. This paper will highlight some of these newest developments in heavy plates for bridge building. For example, for small span railway bridges the so-called thick plate trough bridges have proven to be a favourable concept. Very heavy plates with single plate weights up to 42 t allow building these bridges very efficiently out of one or very few single plates. Another interesting development is the so-called longitudinally profiled plates which allow a varying plate thickness along the actual loading profile. As last point the rising entry of higher strength steels in bridge building will be discussed and it will be shown why thermomechanically rolled plates are the ideal solution for these demands. (paper)

[en] Zirconium is a major component of the alloy used to make fuel cladding. France is a world leader for zirconium manufacturing and masters all the stages from mining to the production of fuel assemblies for various types of reactors. This chart presents the different stages of Zirconium manufacturing and where they take place. The Jarrie site (France) is dedicated for processing the raw material zirconia. The following stage takes place at the Ugine site (France) where various zirconium alloys are produced. The Rugles site (France), the Montreuil-Juigne site (France) and the Paimboeuf site (France) are specialized for sheet hot-rolling, metal hot-extruding, and tube hot-rolling, respectively. (A.C.)

[en] The goal of this three-year project was to improve the production systems in use by steel foundries in the United States. Improvements in the production systems result in less rework, less scrap, and less material handling, all of which would significantly reduce the energy demands of the process. Furthermore, these improvements would allow the companies to be more competitive, more responsive to customers' needs, deliver products with less lead time and require less capital. The ultimate result is a stronger domestic steel casting industry, which uses less energy. A major portion of this research involved the deployment of student researchers at steel foundries, to study their production systems and collect data