Emission limits of the sinter waste gas have been continually and strictly tightened in the EU for the last years. To cope with these environmental challenges, a survey about the sinter plant flue gas cleaning technologies was carried out within the VDEh sub-committee “Burden preparation”. This paper summarizes the main results of this survey and describes briefly principles of different processes and technologies including some of the latest development in the field of sinter waste gas cleaning.

PARE has developed an electrode wear monitoring system. They have implemented such systems at the three electric arc furnaces (two DC, one AC) located in Luxembourg. The goal of these systems is twofold: first it allows the steelmaker to continuously monitor its graphite consumption and relate it to the furnace operating conditions; second it allows a feedback to the electrode suppliers for quality monitoring.

The control of oxygen and fossil fuels injections, taking into account real furnace conditions at each step of the melt, is essential for EAF improvement. Based on near IR Laser- diode spectroscopy, a system enabling dynamic and continuous CO and CO2 monitoring of EAF fumes during the whole melt for long-term operations has been developed. Several industrial trials are reported, the technology is described and the results are discussed.

The effects of the thermo-mechanical parameters, in a Hot Strip Mill equipped with a coilbox, on the mechanical and micro-structural behavior of a titanium stabilized interstitial free steel are reported. The coiling temperature has the most significant effect on the mechanical properties. Increasing the coiling temperature reduces yield stress, tensile strength and hardness while it increases the elongation at fracture and drawability. The mechanical properties have been interpreted, through metallographic studies, in terms of ferrite grain size and of occurrence, distribution and size of the titanium precipitates.

As a substitute for the chromate conversion anticorrosive system CRM has developed a new conversion coating based on silica nanoparticles. This new process will be implemented on galvanizing lines just after the zinc bath where the metal strip is still hot. The strip is dipped into a batch containing a suspension of these nanoparticles. Thanks to the strip heat, the solution is locally destabilized and the nanoparticles precipitate onto the metal. The result is an ultra-thin coating (50-200 nm), very compact, that can provide excellent paint adhesion and anticorrosion properties.

The current strong demand for vehicle lightening from the automobile sector requires flat carbon steel manufacturers to develop new advanced grades capable of fulfilling the increasingly stringent technical requirements of this market. Arcelor Research has recently developed an ultra high strength Fe-Mn-C austenitic steel with excellent formability for automotive applications. The X-IPTM1000 steel composition is optimised to provide the best compromise in ultimate tensile strength (>1000 MPa) and total elongation (>50%) at room temperature. These properties are achieved through the optimisation of the TWIP (TWinning Induced Plasticity) effect by careful control of the stacking fault energy (SFE) and the final microstructure.

In order to improve the safety and reduce plant shut down time for scheduled maintenance works, Aceralia is developing and testing on its HSM at Aviles an application that ensures that the selected equipment is correctly and safely powered down. This application also serves updated information regarding the current status of maintenance works and equipment. Finally, it performs automatic analysis of the events happened during the shut down, deviations with respect to the scheduling and other statistical analyses.