Additive Manufacturing: driving the Steel Industry into the digital age (AM-Steel)

钢铁是现代社会的支柱，是全球许多行业的基础。钢铁行业的广泛增长与工业革命直接相关，自那以来这种增长一直没有停止；2017年全球粗钢产量为17亿吨。多年来，钢铁材料和我们用来制造钢铁材料的工艺一直在不断地研究和开发，但由于缺乏政府对工业的支持，意味着对现有钢铁制造基础设施的新投资有限。近几十年来，大量的钢材充斥着市场，这些钢材的售价比我们在英国生产的价格还要低。这主要来自欧洲和亚洲。为了在这个关键行业竞争，英国必须将重点从大量大宗商品材料转移到较少数量的高附加值材料，并以环境和经济可持续的方式实现这一目标。这一点已被行业接受，但低利润率意味着没有资金可用于投资大型资本项目，并利用现有技术实现所需规模的转型。这个雄心勃勃的项目AM-Steel旨在通过为英国钢铁行业提供启动向数字技术-特别是加法制造(AM)转型所需的知识、技术和竞争优势来开始应对这一挑战。AM工艺目前被用于包括航空航天和医疗在内的高科技和高价值行业，这些行业的设计自由度和高材料利用率使经济效益显而易见，在过去5年中，AM工艺的收入同比增长了40%，这是前所未有的。随着这项技术的成熟，AM已经开始扩展到更广泛的行业领域，其中钢铁是主要材料。据预测，从2020年起，钢将超过钛、镍和铝合金，在金属AM领域占据最大的市场份额。AM需要高质量的金属合金粉末。可广泛用作AM粉末的钢合金不到10种，主要是不锈钢和工具钢，而传统生产路线(如铸造或锻造和减法机械加工)可用的合金有数千种。该项目将利用钢铁行业丰富的冶金知识、先进的热力学建模和世界领先的表征设施-所有这些都在英国提供-创建一系列定制的钢合金成分，通过利用AM工艺的独特优势，以更低的成本实现增强的加工性，用于一般工程应用。AM-Steel将在英国钢铁行业建立AM技术能力；使该行业能够为AM生产高附加值的粉末材料，利用这些技术提高行业传统资产的生产率，并通过数字制造改变该行业及其供应链。AM-Steel在战略上与Liberty GREENSTEEL的政策保持一致：使用当地材料服务当地市场；使用绿色、可再生的长期能源生产；重新激活后续的工程供应链，并提供创新的解决方案，为客户提供竞争优势。AM-Steel将为Liberty到2030年实现碳中性的目标做出巨大贡献。

Steel is the backbone of modern society, serving as the foundation for many industries globally. The widespread growth of the steel industry is tied directly to the Industrial Revolution and since then this growth has not stopped; global crude steel production was 1.7 billion tonnes in 2017. Over the years both steel materials and the processes we use to make them have been researched and developed continuously, but a lack of government support for industry meant new investment in existing steel manufacturing infrastructure was limited. In recent decades huge amounts of steel, sold cheaper than we can make it in the UK, have flooded the market. This comes primarily from Europe and Asia. In order to compete in this key industry the UK has to shift its focus from large volumes of commodity material to smaller volumes of high value-added material, and to achieve this in both an environmentally and economically sustainable way. This has been accepted in the industry but low profit margins have meant there are no funds available to invest in large capital projects and enable transformation on the required scale with current technologies.This ambitious project, AM-Steel, aims to start to address this challenge by providing the UK steel industry with the knowledge, technology and competitive advantage required to kick-start a transformation towards digital technologies - specifically additive manufacturing (AM). The AM process is currently used in high-tech and high-value industries including Aerospace and Medical, where the design freedom and high material utilisation makes the economic benefit easily seen, and is experiencing unprecedented revenue growth of 40% year-on-year for the past 5 years. With the maturing of this technology, AM has started to spread into a broader range industry sectors, where steel is the dominant material. It is projected that from 2020 steel will have the largest market share in the metal AM sector, overtaking Titanium, Nickel, and Aluminium alloys.AM requires high quality metal alloy powders. There are less than ten steel alloys widely available as powders for AM, mostly stainless and tool steels, compared to the thousands of alloys available to traditional productions routes (such as casting or forging and subtractive machining). This project will use the wealth of metallurgical knowledge in the steel industry, advanced thermodynamic modelling, and world-leading characterisation facilities - all available in the UK - to create a range of bespoke steel alloy compositions tailored to realise the enhanced processability at lower cost for general engineering applications, by utilising the unique benefits of the AM process.AM-Steel will establish AM technology capability in the UK steel industry; enabling the industry to produce high value-added powder materials for AM, improving the productivity of the industry's heritage assets using these technologies, and transforming the industry and its supply chain through digital manufacturing. AM-Steel is strategically aligned with the Liberty GREENSTEEL policy: to serve local markets using local materials; produced using green, renewable long-term sources of power; re-invigorating the subsequent engineering supply chain and delivering innovative solutions that provide a competitive advantage to customers. AM-Steel will contribute greatly to Liberty's target to be carbon neutral by 2030.