Management of Technology & Innovation

Quarter- V

Assignment Topic:
Strategic Turning Points in Steel Industry

Prepared By-
Antesh Kumar
EPGP-13A-021

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Contents

1. Introduction 3
2. Global Collaboration 3
3. Technological Changes in the Industry in past years 4
4. Latest Technologies in Steel Industry 6
5. Conclusion 8
6. References 8

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1. Introduction
Countries with sound steel industries benefited from a first-mover advantage with the emergence of
economies driven by industrialisation at the beginning of the twentieth century. India became
independent in the middle of twentieth century and endeavoured to become self-reliant under its
newly adopted model of a mixed economy. To achieve this, the primary (raw materials), secondary
(manufacturing) and tertiary (services) sectors had to develop simultaneously. Steel being a raw
material and intermediate product, was the common link between all three sectors. Steel is probably
the most extensively used input in manufacturing apart from being a product of the primary sector.
Durability, ductility, low weight, high strength and low cost make steel a very valuable raw material
for the manufacturing sector. Steel industry has contributed a lot in India’s economic growth since
independence. Similar growth pattern has been observed for both India’s GDP and steel production,
which highlights the economy’s high dependence on steel industry. India’s consumption of finished
steel has increased from 6.5 MT in 1968 to 98.71 MT in 2018 and India’s GDP (at constant price,
2010) has grown from USD 0.25 trillion in 1968 to USD 2.7 trillion today.

2. Global Collaboration
Indian steel industry has had business ties with foreign countries since its inception. The Bhilai,
Durgapur and Rourkela and Bhilai steel plants were established in collaboration with Russia, Britain
and Germany respectively. Indian steel organizations have signed various MoUs Memorandum of
Understandings) in technology front with other countries over the years to form joint ventures (JVs)
in steel production. In the last 50 years, the global steel industry has witnessed astonishing growth.
The World Steel Association has recognized steel as both the foundation for the last 100 years of
progress and the fundamental to meet the challenges of the next 100 years. Global crude production
of steel has raced from 734 MT in 1991–92 to 1808 MT in 2018–19. In India, crude steel production
has increased from 17 MT in 1991–92 to 111 MT in 2018–19.

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3. Technological Changes in the Industry in past years
Major developments in ironmaking and steelmaking include:

1. Pneumatic steelmaking—initially Open Hearth Furnaces were replaced by the Bessemer

process, and recently the basic oxygen converters have come in
2. Hot-blast techniques permitting continuous production of liquid hot metal in the blast
furnace
3. The electric arc furnace (EAF)
4. Continuous casting
5. Continuous rolling facilities in flat and long steel products

Impact of adopting Bessemer Converter process of Steelmaking

 The Bessemer process helped achieve economies of scale thereby producing large quantity
of steel. This steel can be used for the construction of modern city buildings and factories.
Steel can also be used to connect cities through road and rail routes
 Cost of producing steel reduced drastically by using the Bessemer process. The Bessemer
process enabled the mass production of steel at low costs, which helped modernization.

Impact of adopting Hot blast technique in Blast Furnaces

 By introducing hot blast technology, higher furnace temperatures could be achieved thereby
increasing the capacity of furnaces.
 Hot blast technology – Heat from the furnace flue gas is stored in a firebrick-lined vessel
with multiple chambers and then combustion air is blown through the hot chamber. This is
called regenerative heating.

Impact of Electric Arc Furnace

 Capable of producing a variety of steel grades for multiple uses

 Supports any type of charge (scrap, sponge, iron, pig iron, hot metal)

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  Capital required for set-up is low
 Scope for automating the melting process
 Highly efficient process
 Highly flexible- Unlike blast furnaces where the output is more or less fixed, EAFs can be
started or stopped to produce more or less depending on the market demand.

Impact of Continuous Caster

 The bars and slabs produced by continuous caster are always solid with no cracks. In ingot
casting, lot of products were scrapped due to cracks. Continuous caster has helped improve
the yield and quality of the product.
 As compared to ingot casting, continuous caster is more efficient as it can produce bars and
slabs continuously without any interruptions or manual interventions in the process.

Impact of Continuous Rolling

 Compared with semi-continuous process arrangement, continuous rolling process reduces

production costs by 10-15%. Continuous rolling enables increased production, reduced fuel
consumption, reduced rolling power consumption and reduced bearings consumption and
improved finished product rate.
 By solving the problems of long reversal rolling and big temperature drop in the semi-
continuous process, continuous rolling increases yield by 20-30%. The overall rolling time for
rough rolling is 45-60 seconds (with threading). Finish rolling takes even lesser time than
rough rolling.
 Continuous rolling enables superior product quality. Hydraulically enabled roughing mill has
precise control of the width and thickness of the intermediate slab with small thickness
difference.
 Continuous rolling technology reduces the temperature difference between the head and
tail and optimal intermediate blank plate thereby greatly enhancing the quality of the
finished plate.
 Continuous rolling solves the problem of big temperature drop due to large temperature
difference between head and tail along the long billets thereby improving yield.
 Product quality has improved drastically due to the global innovative cooling process which
combines the vertical coiler with super-fast cooling device

From the above innovations in past century, the steel industries have hugely benefitted in terms of
improving yield while maintaining lower costs of production. Steel is very important product for
development of any economy due to its wide use in Infrastructure, automotive and other consumer
durables. Therefore, it is imperative to innovate in steel industry and constantly deliver newer and
superior products. The challenges in yester- years for the steel industry has been to achieve
economies of scale.

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4. Latest Technologies in Steel Industry
There are primarily three steps in basic steel production process- raw material preparation, iron
making and steel manufacturing. All these processes end with production of various kinds of steel
that find wide application across many industries.

Since industrial production began in the late 19th century, methods for fabrication in the steel
industry have advanced quite a bit. Current techniques are still based on the first Bessemer Process,
which uses oxygen to lower the carbon content in iron.

The ironmaking process involves melting of Coke, Sinter/ Pellet (agglomerates of iron) and iron ore
fines in a Blast Furnace. The liquid hot metal coming out of Blast Furnace contains 4.5-5% carbon
along with other unwanted elements that make it brittle.

Steelmaking process can be performed in 2 different techniques: BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) and
the more present-day EAF (Electric Arc Furnace). Essential shaping such as hot rolling, cold rolling,
wire rod drawing tube making, rail making, structural steel etc. is done in the downstream
processes. Steel can be further processed through application of secondary procedures such as
coating, surface treatment, heat treatment, metal cutting etc. to give the steel its final form and
properties.

But the future is filled with many challenges. With rapid development of infrastructure, there is a
need for steel industry to achieve:

1. Economies of scale
2. Make steel visually appealing
3. Cater to wide variety of demand for steel products
4. Reduce carbon emission
5. Protect its stature with respect to alternative products

Out of the above, the most pressing concern to drive technological innovation is to produce steel in
sustainable way. With growing environmental concern, customers are demanding green steel. Also,
for the survival of steel industry in the long run it is most imperative to come up with processes that
enable manufacturing of green steel. Some of the upcoming technological innovations in this regards
are mentioned below:

1. The ORC Technology

In Rankine Cycle, thermodynamically heat changes to work. This system depends on the water and
gives around 85% of overall power generation.

The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) works on the same principle as the Rankine Cycle but ORC is
dependent on a running turbo generator. It transforms heat energy into mechanical energy initially
and then mechanical energy into electrical energy in next stage. The ORC technology works by
vaporizing a natural liquid rather than converting water to steam (in case of Rankine cycle). In this
ORC process, the turbine rotates at a lower speed and reduced pressure thereby leading to lesser
abrasion of metal parts and sharp edges of the equipment. The power generated in this way can be

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used for a number of industrial and domestic purposes. Also, this ORC process leads to reduction of
carbon footprint by eliminating the need for water for cooling systems.

2. Hybrit Process

The collaboration of three Swedish organizations, SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall, launched a project
called "Hybrit" ("Hydrogen Hot Iron Technology Breakthrough"). The goal is to be carbon neutral in
steel production by 2020.

Traditional pig iron production uses coke for reduction of iron ore (removal of oxygen from iron ore)
in Blast Furnace. This process releases hazardous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The new
generation Hybrit procedure uses hydrogen, which also removes oxygen from iron ore, but results
in formation of water vapour instead of carbon dioxide. Therefore, the Hybrit process is a green
process.

Hydrogen is utilized as a reducing agent in above process. Hydrogen is obtained through electrolysis,
which is done by utilizing sustainable power. The most significant shift from traditional method is
that water vapour is produced as the by-product of this process instead of carbon dioxide.

The products coming out of the HDR (Hot Direct Reduction) process is called DRI (Direct Reduced
Iron) or “sponge iron”. DRI is charged into Basic Oxygen Furnace or Electric Arc Furnace along with
right amount of steel scrap. This mixture is then treated to obtain crude steel.

The Hybrit process is still under development and testing phase. Few trials have been done in several
steel industries across the globe. Although many of HDR/EAF arrangements have been tried and
modern settings have been applied, some difficulties still remain.

3. Jet Process

In particular, in recent years equipment and robots have been improved and optimized to fully meet
real-world standards. One of the latest developments for converters of excellent quality is the jet
process. More than half of the overall productivity is achieved and a wide range of reject rates can
be handled in an innovative way to increase the proportion of scrap and Hot Briquetted Direct
Reduced Iron (HBI) in BOF steelmaking.

The internal energy of the hot metal released in the oxygen purge stage can be used to feed
approximately 20% of the scrap into the converter. By providing external power, the feed can be
increased by up to 30%. This additional power can usually be generated from electricity or coal.

The jet process is designed to make the more efficient and economical use of the chemical energy of
coal in converters. Therefore, the amount of scrap iron added can be higher without external
energy. In addition, the high adaptability of the system facilitates its implementation. Hypothetically,
this tunable procedure allows scrap loading rates from 0% to 100%. No need to add coal when
loading up to 30% scrap. To improve adaptability, a modular converter has been developed that

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allows quick installation of an existing converter base and oxygen purge tube, allowing the converter
to be quickly installed to operate as a regular converter.

4. Molten Oxide Electrolysis

Quick production of metal in the liquid state from oxide raw material can be achieved through
Molten Oxide Electrolysis, which is an unconventional electrometallurgical system. This process can
lead to minimise essential energy and significant simplification of the whole process. Molten Oxide
Electrolysis utilizes anode materials such as titanium and iridium for use with iron and graphite for
use with ferro-alloys. Several challenges need to be overcome to produce metal without process
carbon. Some challenges are- process temperature, abrasion of refractory materials and corrosion of
metals considering electrolysis conditions.

Molten Oxide Electrolysis provides exceptional properties to the liquid metal. This process can be
used to produce wide variety of metals as it is applicable in high temperature processes. An
unprecedented yield has been forecasted through a review of the transport properties of molten
oxides. A promising feature is the increase in tonnage production in the steel industry.

There have been several advancements in Molten Oxide Electrolysis process at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Low-cost inert anode has been produced at the MIT lab scale with help from
NASA, the American Iron and Steel Institute and MIT, which helps to produce emission-free steel.
Quantitative design criteria for both cathode and anode continue to be developed using state of the
art technology in electrode materials.

5. Conclusion
A thorough analysis of all organizations across the global steel industry reveals that all the
organizations are spending in R&D to come up with new technologies to reduce carbon emissions
and produce green steel. Steel makers across the globe have realized that as a major polluter it is
their responsibility to make this planet sustainable so that they can continue to exist and do business
and earn money. Producing Green Steel is a strategic turning point as on date.

6. References
1. The Indian Steel Industry: Growth Challenges and digital disruption, an article by PWC

2. https://www.ibef.org/industry/steel.aspx

3. https://worldsteel.org

4. https://yenaengineering.nl/4-latest-technologies-in-steel-industry/

5. https://www.tatasteeleurope.com/sites/default/files/TS%20Factsheet%20Hisarna%20ENG%20ja
n2020%20Vfinal03%204%20pag%20digital.pdf

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