A University of Bath researcher has been awarded a grant to develop an innovation with the potential to boost Britain’s crisis-hit steel industry.
The ‘Shell-Thick’ project will assess a key stage of steel production, improving quality, safety, productivity, costs and – ultimately – competitiveness of the UK and EU steel industries at a time when they are under intense pressure from cheap Chinese imports.
Thousands of UK and European jobs are at risk from the oversupply of steel as Chinese state-subsidised products flood the market.
The university believes its technology may help the UK/EU steel industry become more competitive and have greater job security in the long-term future.
The project is developing an innovative induction tomography system for assessing the solidification process of metal.
This new system will significantly improve the continuous casting process of steel by providing a real-time, non-destructive and reliable method of measuring the molten steel to detect any defects or fails as it solidifies and becomes a market product.
The system will form a kind of contactless bracelet around the billet of molten steel and take continuous measurements as the steel solidifies.
It then visualises the electrical conductivity of the different states of the solidifying steel and provides an image of its structural composition as it cools.
Induction tomography is a new and emerging non-invasive imaging technique used in a number of applications including medical diagnostics, geophysical exploration and civil engineering.
The university works closely with its industrial partners in the UK and across the EU to bring innovation to the marketplace, delivering impactful research to industry and society.
Dr Manuch Soleimani, an associate professor in its Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, has received an EU Horizon 2020 grant to lead this three-year project and will work with colleagues at the Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation in Spain as well as Italian steel industry companies Ferriere Nord and Ergolines Lab.
Dr Soleimani said: “We are delighted to play a critical part in this project by using world-leading techniques in our Engineering Tomography Lab, in the area of electromagnetic imaging.
“This is an exciting and yet very challenging project that will have a great impact in helping in the competitive production of high quality steel, which is very important for the sustainable future of the UK and European steel industry.”
Research carried out by the department was judged ‘internationally excellent’ and ‘world-leading’ for its impact by the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), an independent assessment of UK university research activity.
