.~~

Mt/year900

800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0

19761980198419881992199620002004

1 World steel demand 1976-2005

It is a great honour to present the Annual Hatfield Lecture,following in the steps of so many illustrious predecessors. Thelecture was established in 1944, as a memorial to the late DrWilliam Hatfield, the renowned Sheffield metallurgist. Thislecture is the third in a series on the iron and steel industryand materials science more generally: the others1.2 havingdealt with the past and present, I shall attempt to lookforward, although there is no doubt, to paraphrase Niels Bohr,that prediction is a very imprecise science, especially where itinvolves the future.

In what will be a very personal view, based on a lifetime'sexperience in the industry, with United Steel Companies,British Steel and finally Corus, I shall suggest where the foun-dations of a successful future for steel may lie. The emphasiswill be on steel's future, rather than on other materials orcompetitive threats.

steel makes up 810 Mt, stainless steel 31 Mt, primary alu-minium 29 Mt, then down through copper, zinc, nickel; andmagnesium to titanium at 0.15 Mt. Figure 1 shows demandfor steel products to 2000 and a forecast to 2005; overalldemand increases steadily but with large geographical differ-ences - marked growth in China and developing Asia, reduc-

tions in Central and Eastern Europe, and relative stagnation inWestern Europe, the USA, and Japan. Production informationshows a very similar trend with strong growth occurring onlyin the Asia-Pacific regions.

These data illustrate the ongoing issue of surplus capacityfrom which steel has suffered for some years now. Overallcapacity in 2000 amounted to 130 Mt, only China beingwithout a surplus (Fig. 2); Western Europe and the formerUSSR have significant reductions to make.

The situation in the UK dates back to the 1970s when asteel requirement of some 35 Mt was being predicted; this wasfollowed by the rapid decline in the 1980s and then growth tothe present position of 15-17 Mt (Fig. 3). The general declinein UK consuming markets is well known, but this is not thecase in all sectors. Figure 4 shows a significant declinein the production of commercial vehicles, but the reductionin volumes of cars from UK manufacturers is offset by recent

Drivers for changeOne question that perplexed me throughout my career con-cerned the drivers for change: which came first, marketdemand or technology push? I was certain that no marketsurvey established the requirements or specification of the firstwheel or Walkman, although certainly marketing has beenresponsible for the rapid growth of the latter.

Of the factors affecting demand, important market driversinclude:. the supply-demand balance ). entry cost. legislation (particularly environmental). market needs. business globalisation. profit.A breakdown of world metal consumption illustrates thepre-eminent position of steel. Of the 900 Mt market, carbon

Steel World 2002 Vol. 7

. Crude Steel Production Nucor Coca ColaNew business model Marketing

Minimill SegmentationSimple product range SegmentationRegional supply SegmentationLow capital and operating

costs

5 Growth strategies for commodity busines~

Mt

250

0 Surplus Capaci~ AmazonNew business model

Very high level of serviceTechnologyInternational coverageBooks and CDs via a new

sales route - the Internet

200

150

100

50

0Western China Former- Japan Rest of USA Lat Central RowEurope USSR Asia America Europe

2 World steel production and surplus capacity: 2000

industry as Corns and Thyssen-Krupp, and more will certainlyfollow. There is a new player being formed, a combination ofUsinor, Arbed, and Aceralia, which will have combined salesofc 30bn, production of 44 Mt, and employ 110000 people.The pre-eminent position this company would occupy in theranks of steel producers is evident: certainly, it would providean opportunity to establish a dominant position commerciallyand pursue aggressively business rationalisation, a route thatit is familiar to most of us.

To conclude, despite large surplus capacities and stagnantdemand (other than in China and South East Asia), growth ispossible in mature markets if the correct strategies areadopted. Further concentration of the industry is inevitable.

Driving steel forward

Year

3 UK steel production 1955-2000

Process innovationOver the past 150 years, processes have been invented, con-tinuously developed, and reached maturity until overtakenby new processes (Fig. 6), the electric arc furnace and basicoxygen processes reaching maturity perhaps at the same timeand now coming under competition from new processes andcombinations that have still to achieve maturity but are cer-tain to bite further into the market. First, however, somethoughts on continuous improvement.

In the classical blast furnace process, coke and sinter are fedinto the top of the furnace, hot air is blown in through thetuyeres, and iron exits from the tap hole. Significant improve-ments have been made in blast furnace performance over theyears, and specifically in injecting materials into the furnace.The improvement in productivity achieved and the increasesin coal injection rate are shown in Fig. 7. Coal injection hasbeen carried out for many years. The benefits - reduced fuelcosts, improved productivity and stability of operation - are

well known, but the high cost of pulverised fuel systems forpreparing the coal made installation prohibitively expensive

growth as a result of the transplanted plants and. per-haps a little surprisingly. the continuous steady growth ofconstruction - a topic returned to below.

While steel is usually regarded as a commodity product.growth in commodity products - steel. soft drinks. bookretailing. music (Fig. 5) - is certainly possible. given thecorrect marketing strategy and business model: 'There areno commodity products. just tired salesmen.'

It is worth recalling that while the top five automotive com-panies account for 70% of the global market and the top fivefor iron rore 90%, the top five steel producers represent only15%. A snapshot of crude steel production by companyin 1999 ranged from USX at 11.3 Mt to Posco at 26.5 Mtand included such examples of consolidation within in the

1850 2010Time

6 Process innovation in steelmaking

12 Steel World 2002 Vol. 7

Fuel Ratekg/t hot metal

Productivityt/m3/day

Mt/year

.1950195519601965197019751980198519901995200020052010

Year

9 World steel productiou by process route projected to2010

8 Stills from videos of plastic and coal injection into blastfnrnace

one area where we have to progress much faster than in thepast. These new processes, perhaps not in Europe, but in Asiaand other areas of growing demand, will playa major role inthe steel industry of the future.

When I joined the industry, steel was produced in openhearth furnaces and by the Ajax process, in which oxygenwas injected into the open hearth furnace: we made a lot ofsteel, and burnt the furnace down occasionally! Ingots werecast, but soon we moved to continuous casting and realisedthat to provide the caster with steel that was in specification,at temperature, at the right time, the introduction of ladlerefining was required. Market demands for purer and purersteels led to more complex process routes being design~d tomanufacture them. Figure 10 shows an actual process routeused to produce steel for transmission of wet acid gases fromthe North Sea: tapping, gas stirring, reladling to remove anyslag, reheating, perhaps some dephosphorisation, powderinjection to moderately reduce sulphur and modify theinclusions, followed by vacuum degassing and casting. It is

in some cases, until an innovative engineer and metallurgistat Scunthorpe learnt that a firm in Doncaster had developed aprocess for injecting coarse coal into boilers. Soon contact wasmade and the trials began on injecting material into singletuyeres of the blast furnace, soon extending to full furnaceoperation. Various materials can now be injected includingcoal and plastics (Fig. 8). The future, though, is even moreinteresting as far as injection technology is concerned. Per-haps the most significant innovation not been proceeded withto date is the simultaneous injection of granular coal, fine ironore, and oxygen through the blast furnace tuyeres, by whichit is believed to be possible to replace at least 50% of the cokerequirement and a considerable portion of the ore input fromthe sinter plant. The importance of this lies in the high capitalcost of integrated plants. If it were feasible to inject such largeamounts of coal and ore and avoid some of the costs associ-ated with sinter- and cokemaking the process would have amajor impact on steelmaking economics.

Looking at steel production by process route over the past150 years, the pronounced growth of both oxygen and elec-tric arc steelmaking in reCent decades is clear (Fig. 9). Newprocesses are coming to the fore and are predicted to increasein proportion to integrated steelmakers. I believe that this is

Steel World 2002 Vol. 7

100%

/'.","'"

/ Hot MII.I

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Planta

34%

.'

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7.5%11 Prototype direct strip caster design

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13 Cost comparison of single integrated plant and twominimills, both producing 4 Mt/year of steel

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at a recent SMEA lecture3 by Gerald Hochenblicher of VAl.EuroStrip, in which V AI is a partner, claims to be cast-ing carbon steels and stainless successfully at speeds up to150 m mill-I. Thicknesses of 1,5-3,5 mm are scheduled forproduction in plants of capacity up to O' 5 Mt/year.

These developments have led to significant cost reductionsin the capital associated with steel products production andFig. 13 shows a capital cost comparison between a single inte-grated works scheduled to produce 4 Mt/year and that associ-ated with two minimill plants also producing 4 Mt but using25% briquetted reduced iron (BRI). Avoidance of the cost ofBRI leads to the inevitable conclusion that further significantreductions in capital are possible. However, the product mustbe fit for the market place. and while minimills certainly havehad major successes and rapidly replaced traditional steel-making in the production of many commercial products, theystill have some way to go in terms of large structural sections.heavy plates. special wire rod, and strip grades. Some of thesemay always be the province of the integrated manufacturers.

In summary, the primary process has survived so farby innovating and reacting to competitive threats. Thecomplexity of the process routes in high productivity. multi-product plants severely limits their potential to operate atminimum cost. I do not believe further new integrated plantswill ever be built in the developed countries. The most likelyeconomic solution is for a policy of 'make do and mend' asthe industry is rationalised further, while new investment willbe concentrated in many compact plants. These may cometo playa part in steelmaking in Europe, but certainly willcontinue to do so with a vengeance in the Far East.

12 Productiou direct strip caster layout

absolutely wonderful for the metallurgist but unfortunately; itcan take about three hours to work through the cycle and caneffectively destroy the profit that might be made on suchprojects.

Looking at the process routes to various products, the elec-tric arc-ladle furnace-caster-rolling mill route is compact andsimple, or has the potential to be. Relative to minimills, inte-grated plants always have to carry high capital baggage - coaland ore blending, sintermaking, cokemaking, ironmaking andsteelmaking facilities - and it is not until the secondary steel-making stage is reached that the processes become equivalent.Even then, in most plants occupying ground traditionally heldby big steel, the continuous casting, slab reheating, androlling processes are discrete and in different parts of theworks.

These high cost routes provided a major driver for innova-tion to reduce capital and operating costs and to resize toplants capable of working in small regional markets. This wasachieved by collapsing the process route, for example by thecontinuous casting of shapes as close in dimension to the finalproduct as possible, i.e. near net shape casting, to avoid pri-mary rolling costs. A good example of this is beam blanks, awell known technology available to all. Another example,thin slab casting, can permit the linking of the castingmachine and rolling mill. Long cast slabs are processedthrough equalising furnaces, making use of the energy con-tained within the solidified strand, through roughing andfinishing mills and cooling beds, before coiling, often continu-ously as far as is practicable. The approach is equally appli-cable to hot strip, bar, and shape products. Figure 11 shouldlook familiar. Shown by Frank Fitzgerald 1990 and JeffEdington in 1995, it illustrates the strip casting process underdevelopment at the Grangetown ~aboratories on Teeside.Figure 12 shows how the dream has become reality withthe introduction of some inline reduction and cooling anda double coiling system. In fact such a plant was described

Product innovationsHere I would like to describe some examples in heavy plate.heavy sections and wire rod.

An important driver in the post-war effort to produce toughsteels was the experience with the Liberty Ships built in theUSA during the Second World War, which graphically illus-trated the need to match the quality of the produ~t. the pro-cess route, and design considerations. The Liberty Ships weredesigned for riveting. The steel was brittle yet the ships werewelded together. The combination of very high operatingstresses, workmanship that left much to be desired and unfa-miliarity with the welding process resulted in ships breakingapart, often before they were launched.

Steel World 2002 Vol. 714

Reheat

HR/RCR

T CCR

Deformed 1 lAustenite CoolingC=~~~~:~> ..: \M ... 'c~ ACC HR/TMCP

c::::g> ,:~~>

t14 Microstructure control of roUed products by thermo-

mechanical controUed processing

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16 The range of prodncts from the large structural mill atTeesside

0.3 0.32 0.34 0.36 0.38 0.4 0.42 0.44 0.46

Carbon Equivalent (IIW)

15 Mechanical property benefits of thermomechanicalcontrolled rolling

the right which is actually a metre in depth. In this millthe cast slab is vertically rolled, and then edge rolled witha combination of horizontal rolling to get the fInal shape.The prime target of section mills has always been to obtaincorrect product shape with the maximum yield. Graduallythis requirement is being integrated with the metallurgicalrequirements, a process in which mathematical modellingis playing an increasingly important role. Linking thesemodels with those related to the development of the micro-structure of the steel proves extremely exciting. As the baris deformed in the rolling process, it is possible to predict howthe initial microstructure formed during reheating changesduring dynamic recrystallisation in the roll gap, static recry-stallisation, and grain growth. The industry is now beginningto bring together the two technologies and by putting a fIniteelement mesh on the models of the slab rolling process dis-cussed above (Fig. 17), it is possible to predict the distributionsof temperature and deformation throughout the rolling pro-cess, produce plots of the equivalent plastic strain across thesection, and link this to the microstructural developmentsthat occur - allowing development of new products much

faster than in the past.One example of this is the asymmetric beam: it is difficult

to roll sections that are asymmetric for a number of reasonsand I believe that the beam shown in Fig. 18 is the fIrst asym-metric section rolled in routine production operations. - How-ever, as well as allowing rapid development of completelynew products, model driven development also speeds reactionto the marketplace, making changes to the dimensions of

existing products possible very quickly.Turning to wire and rod products, understanding the rela-

tionship between rod and wire properties and the influenceof processing on these has led again to the development ofsophisticated mathematical models to simulate a single slugof wire passing through guides and dies in the wire drawingprocess; accurate prediction of the high strains achieved at thethroat of the die is particularly important. This has permitteddevelopment of total wire drawing models that make itpossible to understand what goes on in the wire drawing

Much progress has since been made in the production ofstrong, tough, weldable steels through control of chemistryand microstructure and Fig. 14 illustrates the opportunitiesfor controlling the structure by thermomechanical control-led processing (TMCP): reheating the steel slabs to varioustemperatures, rolling in the recrystallisation range, holdinguntil the temperature reaches the range where no recry-stallisation occurs, and rolling further to give a deformedaustenite microstructure, which can then be allowed to coolnormally in the .classic , hot rolling (HR) process route, trans-

forming to fine grained ferrite plus pearlite. Accelerating thecooling rate in water treatment plants (ACC) gives fine ferriteplus bainite, or in the case of direct quenching (DQ) ferrite plusmartensite, which can be tempered to generate the requiredproperties. These developments led to significant improve-ments in both strength and toughness. Figure 15 illustratesthe implications as far as strength is concerned; note themarked reduction in carbon equivalent value that can beachieved in developing plate of the same strength usingthermomechanical processing as opposed to heat treatment.There is little doubt that without development of these pro-cesses, exploration, extraction, and transmission of gas fromthe North Sea would have been considerably delayed.

Figure 16 shows some of the vast range of products fromthe large structural mill at Teeside, from the small columnto the lower left beam which weighs> 1 t m-1 to the beam on

Steel World 2002 Vol. 7 15

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18 World's first asymmetric beam rolled in routine produc-tion

1800

1700

CO 1600no~ 1500.c- 1400OJ~ 1300'-

ci5 1200

1100

10001880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040

Completion Year

19 Development of strength in steel wires for snspension

bridge construction

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Bridge (1991 m, 1770 MPa); this phenomenal increase instrength certainly made a suspension bridge more attractiveto build by changing the design from a four rope to a two ropebridge with consequent reductions in costs. material weights.and foundations. The Strait of Messina Bridge (3300 m span).not yet a firm project. will join Sicily to mainland Italy andwill contain 166000 t of steel in the cables.

In conclusion. the benefits of mathematical modelling of theproduction and metallurgical processes cannot be overesti-mated. Detailed knowledge of the market will allow thesemodels to be applied to satisfy the market needs. Focused. sys-tematic innovation will enable faster development of betterproducts and enable far faster inroads into the marketplace. Itis possible to predict with confidence that thermomechanicalprocessing will grow in importance in all process sectors.

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17 Prediction of temperatnre and deformation dnring roI-

ling

process far more accurately, again facilitating development ofnew products.

A good example of the impact of continuous developmentof wire strength is that of suspension bridges, which are animportant market for high carbon steel wire ropes; 2 or 3 mmdiameter hard drawn high carbon wires are formed into ropesand subsequently into cables to form part of the suspension rigitself. The development of wire strength has been fundamentalto the increased span of suspension bridges (Fig.19), from theBrooklyn Bridge in the 1980s with wires of 1100 MPastrength to the Golden Gate Bridge (1280 m span, wirestrength 1520 MPa), and the Humber Bridge (1410 m, 1560MPa). A significant hike then occurred to the Akashi Kaikyo

Innovation in applicationIn 1981, a British Steel study into the costs of fire protection inbuildings concluded that the cost of insulating fibre and insu-lating boards for protecting structural steelwork in multirisebuildings amounted to 31 % of the cost of the building, morethan the cost of the steel; this was certainly the major reasonwhy steel could make no inroad into the market for concrete.The reaction was to undertake a series of tests at the FireResearch Centre at Cardington in which fires were carefully

16 Steel World 2002 Vol. 7

Total cost down 55%

. ~"I.-64

-70- 28

- 36

.42

FireProtection

Painting

Erection

Fabrication

Steel

1981 Actual Cost 1:98511 2000 Actual Cost 1:1100/12000 Value £2400/t

20 Reduction in cost of multistory buildings achievedfollowing changes in steel design codes

22 Location of connection cracking in joints of steelstructures following earthquake

set in, for example, a four storey building, fully instrumentedto obtain the maximum information on the rate of heat trans-fer to the steel and the effect on stress and strain loading. Thiswork led to very significant reductions in the quantity andcost of fire protection required and very significant changes inthe designs codes for steel, bringing advantages for steel overconcrete. Adjusting the 1981 cost of structural steelwork of£985/t to its equivalent 2000 value of £2400/t, Fig. 20shows that the total cost has been reduced by 55%, fire protec-tion costs by 64%, and the steel cost by 42% in real terms. Thebeneficial effects in the UK marketplace have been marked,with steel's market share rising from 33 to 67% between1980 and 2000, while concrete declined from 52 to 20%.However, there is much to be done to achieve similar levels ofpenetration in mainland Europe, where steel usage rangesfrom 30% in Spain and The Netherlands to as low as 10% in

Italy.Another application of interest is Corus Bi-Steel, which con-

sists of two plates connected by friction welded bars (Fig. 21),fuled with concrete to improve the properties. Bi-Steel has

excellent impact strength and behaves in a semiductilemanor. One major application for this product is in blast pro-tection structures; another is in seismic applications. whichhas received much interest following the earthquakes inChiba in Japan and North Ridge in Los Angeles.

These earthquakes resulted in a major. internationalwork programme covering design. materials. fabrication andin-service stress patterns during seismic events. Figure 22depicts schematically how failures were generally concen-trated in the junction areas in the corners of the steel struc-tures. Any fractures propagated down the weld metal andsubsequently in the base material parallel to the weld. withsome cracking through the material on occasions. However,the major concern was lamellar tearing, which alwaysoccurred in the base metal. always outside the visible heataffected zone. and generally parallel to the weld fusion bound-aries. These issues led to a major development programmeexamining the effect of steel chemistry, cleanness, segrega-tion, and rolling on toughness and susceptibility to lamellartearing. The output of this work was a series of beams andcolumns with improved properties. and quite a large rig wasconstructed to test these materials, 19 m in width and 9 mhigh. The beam-

potential of information and communications technology asa key enabler in the necessary improvement of the construc-tion industry, to bring together design of buildings and

components:New technologies have proved very useful in the design of build-ings and their components, and in the exchange of designinformation throughout the construction team. There are enor-mous benefits to be gained. in terms of eliminating waste andrework for example, from using modem CAD technology toprototype buildings and by rapidly exchanging informationon design changes.4 [emphasis as in original]

This led Corus to launch the Knowledge Based Constructionproject, the vision of which was to enable an architect, client,and consulting engineers to design and modify proposed con-structions very fast, test and cost concepts rapidly, constructbuildings on screen, in two and three dimensions, and to sup-port the designs with product libraries which describe thecharacteristics, availability, and costs of all the products avail-able. To be able to redesign structures rapidly, for example toreposition lift shafts, where the technology promises the capa-bility to allow automatic redesign of the structure to cope withthe basic change in design via the use of 'intelligent objects'.And fmally to provide a platform where all the associated dataand knowledge could be shared in real time between thoseinvolved.

A typical construction sequence would begin with theboundaries of the site being defined with security fencing;piling being driven for retaining walls, containment, or forbasement structures; bearing piles being introduced as neces-sary; perhaps for high rise buildings, the concrete pad; thestructure secured to foundations with anchor bolts, structuralsteel work installed; floor decking being input to the asym-metric beam mentioned above; reinforcing materials, rebar,remesh, the concrete being laid. The objective is to get thesecondary steelwork and the roofing in position as rapidly aspossible to ensure the building is watertight as early as pos-sible in the process, for rapid completion. All sorts of optionsare available for wall materials, decorative and roofing mate-rials - different colours, different textures for the claddings.

The system that the project envisaged would allow a buildingto be designed on a laptop computer between people talking,then converted into a two-dimensional drawing for people inthe field to work on. It is absolutely vital that this work is con-tinued to maintain and extend the dominant position of steelin construction.

23 Heat affected zones(below) welded joints

of submerged arc (top) and laser

Corus has constructed a heavy product laser processing faci-lity with a 25 kW CO2 laser bank. transmitted by optical fibresalong a gantry to a laser head. which is manipulated by a fiveaxis robot. The objective of this work was to develop expertisein laser cutting and welding of heavy gauge products andspecifically to ensure that products were available that wouldmeet any new requirements/demands coming from themarket place. to build a competitive edge and to developbetter. more exciting products. Submerged arc and laser weldcross-sections are compared in Fig. 23. The submerged arcweld has a large fusion zone with the heat affected zoneextending beyond the extremities of the photograph, whereasthe laser weld, which uses no filler material. fuses the twoparts together with almost no heat affected zone. This isreflected in the two main advantages of laser processing: mini-mal or no distortion and reduced cost owing to the lack ofexpenditure on the welding electrodes. The opportunitiesexamined included butt welding of wide plates or bespokesections. stake welding to form sections, T joints, perhaps ofdifferent materials, and cladding of high performance mat-erials onto low cost base material. Although higher capitalcosts are incurred compared with the conventional routes.laser welding has the capability to make products that areimpossible by other processes.

The final example concerns knowledge based construction.Egan4 characterised construction industry performance in theUK as one of fragmentation and low margins, inefficiency.waste, and cost and time overruns being common with littlelearning and innovation. This all leads, as might be expected,to pronounced client dissatisfaction. Egan pointed out the

ConclusionsIn drawing overall conclusions, it is important to emphasiseagain the difficulty of predicting the future: the one thing Isoon learnt about forecasts was that they were never right.The future may be possible to predict if you are talking abouttomorrow but accurate long term predictions are impossible.

Nevertheless, I would suggest that the successful steel-maker of the future would have to give serious considerationto the following points:. continuous innovation - of process, product, and applica-

tion technology - will be fundamental to the survival ofthe steel industry

Steel World 2002 Vol. 718

particular Colin Honess of Swinden Technology Centre. Thispaper is based on the 49th Hatfield Memorial Lecture given inSheffield on 4 December 2001.

..

References1. R. Boom: 47th Hatfield Memorial Lecture: 'Iron, the hidden

element: the role of iron and steel in the twentieth century',Steel World, 2000, 5, (I), 88-96.

2. C. J. Humphreys: 48th Hatfield Memorial Lecture: 'From Hatfieldto high-technology: designing materials for the twenty-firstcentury', Sheffield, UK, December 2000.

3. G. Hochenbichler: 'EuroStrip - strip casting now a reality', SMEALecture, Sheffield, UK, December 2001, Sheffield Metallurgicaland Engineering Association.

4. J. Egan: 'Rethinking construction', Department for Transport,Environment and the Regions, London, UK, 1998; available atwww.dti.gov.uk/construction/rethink/report/index.htm.

. construction continues to provide tbe major opportunitiesfor both UK and world steel .

. innovative applications for standard products will showsignificant benefits. compared with the past emphasis ondevelopment of new products

. solutions must be brought to market faster to maximiseearly benefits

. knowledge is the source of competitive edge: we haveto move from simply selling bars of steel to encapsulatingour knowledge of the product and its effective use andensuring we achieve adequate value from the marketplace.

However in striving to achieve success in new applicationsand products. we must remember to keep hold of existingprocesses.

Remember that the past actually did exist: the future existsonly as a place we are going to. The secret of success is toremember and learn from the past. live the present. and createthe future.

AcknowledgementsThe assistance of friends and former colleagues at Corus in the

preparation of the lecture is gratefully acknowledged. in

British Steel Research Achievements 1970-90

A monograph by P. H. Scholes with a foreword by Dr F. Fitzgerald

The period 1970-1990 was a time of rapid technological change in the British Steel Corporation.It was underpinned by intensive research and development to ensure the success of newtechnologies, and to build a profitable industry. This monograph describes some of the researchachievements during this period, based largely on articles published in Steelresearch. It is nosense comprehensive but rather the intention has been to illustrate the breadth and scope ofactivities across a broad spectrum of technology.

Following nationalisation of most of the steel industry in 1967, there was a pressing need torestructure research facilities. In 1970 there were more than 20 disparate researchestablishments widely dispersed throughout the UK. Restructuring took place in three stages.The outcome was an efficient organisation able to provide technical support for the operatingworks and businesses. The basic structure and major facilities of Corporate R&D remained inplace after privatisation in 1988 until British Steel pic merged in 1999 with Hoogovens BV. Theformer research laboratories are now part of Corus RD& T.Selected topics are presented in three sections:. process research. product research. environmental research.The CD contains PDF files of the monograph optimised for printing and for reading on the screen,together with a fully searchable bibliography of references to papers published in the technical.literature.Copies of the disk are available from the author, priced £5 (~10) including P&P. Contact:phscholes@lineone.net.

Steel World 2002 Vol. 7 19