Virtual factory to fast-track UK steel innovation

The £7m initiative, funded through the EPSRC’s Prosperity Partnership initiative, will be based on a process called Rapid Alloy Prototyping which enables much of this testing to be carried out in research labs and imaging suites rather than in an actual steel plant.

Innovation in the steel industry is crucial to keep pace with changing technologies and customer requirements, but developing new steel alloys is often a very slow process with lots of steps and requiring expensive trials on hundreds of tonnes of material, much of which has to be remade into new steel products.

The new process combines physical testing and computational modelling to rapidly assess hundreds of small-scale samples, covering areas such as strength, electrical and mechanical properties, as well as durability and resistance to corrosion. “This project provides an exciting opportunity to accelerate the translation of innovative steel chemistry and process improvements into the steel industry,” said Prof Claire Davis of WMG at Warwick University.”