Impact
MOWSES aims to ensure infrastructures built with green steel, produced with increased scrap, are safe by investigating the resilience of welded joints, and their corresponding heat-affected zones. Welding thermal cycles and residual elements from lower-quality scrap may impact these critical areas. The project will analyse these potential effects on strength and toughness using microstructure analysis including machine learning on small experimental batches and experiments in which the steel is subjected to realistic welding temperature histories, mechanical testing and numerical simulations. This comprehensive approach will identify and mitigate potential risks, ensuring the production of high-quality, sustainable steel suitable for infrastructure applications.
Future recommendations for chemical compositions should prioritise rules that account for the combined concentrations of residual elements, such as Sulfur (S), Phosphorus (P), Arsenic (As) and Tin (Sn)… rather than specifying maximum values for each element individually.
The main outcome of the project will be to deliver acceptable chemical composition ranges for the production of weldable green structural steels, especially for the utilisation in European sustainable infrastructure projects.
Scientific
The progress in material characterisation and modelling will contribute to future scientific developments in material science and in other related fields
Economic
Dillinger and ArcelorMittal will produce safe and green heavy steel plates for the European infrastructure. The project will contribute to safeguarding the employment in these companies, and more generally in the steel industry. The project will define guidelines for the classification of scraps, used as a base for future policy recommendations.
Societal
The project holds the potential to reduce CO2 emission by the production of clean steel plates by 11.9Mtons/year. Thanks to the outcomes of this project, green steel will be increasingly accepted and embraced by steel fabricators. The safety of the structures built with these materials will be increased. For end-users, infrastructure owners, better guarantees related to the use of green steel will help to introduce these materials in the market.
Education
The demonstration that material science, particularly related to the microstructure of the HAZ, and the use of machine learning contribute to the challenges of the energy transition can help to attract talent to this curriculum at the universities.
Infrastructure is the largest steel consuming market in Europe, and heavy plates represent more than 10% of that steel consumption. Infrastructure for the energy generation systems, in particular for wind energy, are critical for the green transition in Europe and are made largely from heavy or quarto plates. Infrastructure projects rely heavily on welding; it is critical that the strength and toughness of these plates can be guaranteed in the welded product.