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autumn2015
2015
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Nico Langerak, Tata Steel: steel is still the standard
Veni, Vidi
… Ferro!
Text Menno Timmer Photography Marco Peters
Does the growing use of plastics and
various other lighter and alternative
materials signify that the use of steel is
on its way out in the automotive
industry? Or will the race to reduce
CO2 emissions and fuel consumption
create new opportunities for the
celebrated metal, the ‘gestaalde
perfectie’ in the words of Mitsubishi’s
slogan, that has brought the sector so
much success for more than a century?
Nico Langerak of Tata Steel has no
doubts about steel’s future in the
automotive industry: “Steel is
unsurpassed when it comes
to recyclability, crash resistance and
CO2 performance during the
production process.”
95 autumn 2015 - p29
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‘You have to base environmental
performances on the entire life cycle’
T
o many people, steel is just steel. But nothing
could be further from the truth. No two types of
steel are the same, says Nico Langerak, Department
Manager Application & Engineering Research &
Development at Tata Steel. “The steel you find in a car
and under the bonnet today did not exist 20 years ago.”
He makes the comparison with a Daf from 1970. “The
strength of the steel that was used in this Dutch icon at
that time measured 200 megapascal. Modern cars are
made from High Strength steel of up to 2,000 megapascal. In other words, the steel is ten times stronger, which
means that if you were to make the same 1970 version
of a Daf with today’s steel, the car would be half the
weight and far more crash resistant. The driver now has
a far greater chance of surviving a head-on collision at
65 km/hour.”
Shredder scrap from steel
production
Tata Steel produces 28 million tons of steel annually
worldwide, of which 18 million tons is produced in
Europe and seven million tons at the plant in IJmuiden.
Roughly a fifth of the steel produced in Europe is sold
to car manufacturers. To produce that seven million
tons of steel in this country, the company uses approximately 1.5 million tons of scrap metal, some of it from
shredder material from Dutch end-of-life cars.
‘The use of
High Strength
steel is a must
for five stars in
the safety test’
According to Langerak, there have been explosive
advances in steel in the last few decades, and especially
in the last few years. “Weight reduction is naturally an
important aspect, but another factor is the steadily
stricter requirements of the Euro NCAP safety tests. To
receive a five-star rating, the use of High Strength steel
is a must for a car maker.” And there are numerous types
of High Strength steel, he says, pointing to a strippeddown chassis of a Volvo V40 standing at the entrance to
the R&D Centre. Colours are used to identify the
strengths of the various types of steel.
200 grades of steel
But using High Strength steel is just one aspect. For car
makers it is important that the steel is also easily workable, which is why Tata Steel has launched around 100
new steel products in the last five years. Car manufacturers can choose from no fewer than 200 grades. To
illustrate, the average car contains 70 to 80 different
types of steel, each of which has undergone a specific
rolling or other finishing procedure. Practically no two
parts in a car are made from the same type of steel.
Langerak stresses that in order to meet the specific
p30 - 95 autumn 2015
wishes of car manufacturers Tata Steel works closely
with them and their suppliers of compression equipment and installations from the design phase to ensure
that the production process is optimal and that the
steel’s properties are fully utilised. Even models that
were only recently launched on the market are analysed
in Tata Steel’s R&D lab at the request of the manufacturers to investigate whether any parts could be made
even lighter or stronger and produced more cheaply.
Politics dictates
Nevertheless, a growing number of car manufacturers
have started using or at least experimenting with alternative materials to some extent. Examples include the
carbon light bodies of the BMWi3 or the chassis of the
Audi A8 made entirely from aluminium, as well as
numerous other composites, plastics and magnesium
applications. But what criteria does a car manufacturer
use to choose a particular material and, if this trend
continues, what consequences will it have for the future
of the automotive industry?
“Expensive Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastics (CFRP)
are in fact only to be found in the very highest segments
of exclusive marques like Lamborghini”, Langerak
observes. “In that class the use of super-light and very
expensive materials is essential to achieve the maximum
weight reduction needed to deliver above-average
speeds. And the buyers have no qualms about paying
more for it.”
Aluminium parts are particularly popular in the higher
premium segments, he says. “The Audi A8 was the first
entirely aluminium production car. Was, because in
later models the manufacturer decided to return to
2,000 megapascal High Strength steel because of its better crash-resistant properties. The choice of material
therefore greatly depends on the properties you are
looking for, the size of the production run and the cost
price. Naturally, the race to construct ever lighter vehicles, which is driven in part by the political desire to
comply with the European emission requirements, also
plays a role. A lot is changing in the field, but I certainly
do not anticipate a breakthrough by carbon, aluminium
or reinforced composites at the expense of High
Strength steel in the longer term. On the contrary,
steel’s potential is far from exhausted. I believe that the
weight of the current generation of cars could be
reduced by at least a quarter with the use of the very
latest types of steel.”
RELATION
Steel’s environmental
performance has improved
Furthermore, quite apart from the lower cost
price, steel has a number of other significant
advantages in terms of environmental protection and sustainability over the aforementioned alternative materials. Langerak: “For
example, steel is fully recyclable. At best, you
can produce simple road markers from carbon.
Although aluminium can be recycled, it is
highly alloyed, so you can’t combine different
types of aluminium.”
In addition, steel performs significantly better
in terms of CO2 emissions during the production process. For example, the CO2 emissions
during the production of a kilo of steel are 2 to
2.5 kilos. By comparison, 11.2 to 12.5 kilos of
CO2 are released in the production of a kilo of
aluminium. The figure for magnesium is 18 to
45 kilos of CO2 and the production of a kilo of
carbon FRP generates emissions of 21 to 23
kilos of greenhouse gas. In other words, steel
scores better on every environmental component. “What’s more,” Tata Steel’s spokesman,
Robert Moens, adds, “we have succeeded in
reducing the amount of energy required to
produce a ton of steel by 31% in the last 25
years.”
Ground-breaking project
There is a lot more to come, Moens feels, mentioning the ground-breaking global project
HIsarna, an initiative of Tata Steel. The aim of
the project is to find a new method of manufacturing liquid raw iron that eliminates an
entire step in the production process (the
pre-processing of iron ore and coal). Moens:
“If the project is successful, it will eventually be
possible to reduce CO2 emissions by at least
20%.”
This unique and expensive project, which is
being subsidised by the EU, is a joint effort by
a large consortium that includes the mining
company Rio Tinto, ArcelorMittal, ThyssenKrupp, Voestalpine, technology supplier Paul
Wurth and 40 research institutes, as well as
universities and technology companies from
15 EU countries. It will, however, be a number
of years before the HIsarna technology can
actually be implemented. A six-month test will
start next year to investigate whether the
extremely complex installation can continue to
operate optimally over a longer period. That
test will be followed by further long-term u
95 autumn 2015 - p31
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Conventional steel
High Strength steel
Aluminium
Composites (carbon fibres)
Magnesium
Other plastics
‘Steel is
entirely
recyclable,
unlike
competing
materials’
2012
30
13
1
-/-
-/-
2
2030
15
40
6
2
1
2
tests before the system can finally be scaled up to an
industrial scale. Moens is very optimistic: “It proves
once again that steel is and will remain competitive.
Furthermore, the CO2 emissions from the HIsarna
technology are not only lower, but are also so pure that
they can easily be captured and stored.”
Life Cycle Assessment
In Langerak’s opinion, policy makers still guide car
manufacturers in their choice of materials far too much
on the basis of the amount of CO2 that comes out of the
exhaust pipe. That is, he feels, a short-sighted policy.
For an objective assessment of the environmental performance and advantages of a particular material, you
have to look at the entire life cycle of the car. “How
much CO2 is discharged during production, how much
during the car’s useful life, and how much can be recycled? Only when you have analysed all those components can you fairly measure a particular material’s
ecological footprint.”
He refers in this context to the Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA), a method of measuring the environmental performance of a product from ‘cradle to grave’. “It is an
extremely complicated and complex method because in
fact you also have to take account of where a product is
manufactured (the aspect of the CO2 released during
transport) and the energy sources that are used (coalfired power station or green energy). It is then possible
that on balance an electric car produced in India could
have a far greater impact on the environment than a
Porsche Cayenne that is made in Germany.”
Change in emission standards
Langerak produces a number of tables and studies
which clearly show that carbon fibres and magnesium
actually score very badly in the life cycle because the
CO2 emissions during production are very high. To
make one car from magnesium, 20,000 kilos of CO2
are needed. The figure is half that for a car made from
steel, or 10,000 kilos of CO2.
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40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
2012
2030
In his view, it is safe to say that the more fuel-efficient a
car is, the more important the production component
becomes in the life cycle. Which is logical, since the
lower the CO2 emissions during use, the greater the
weight to be assigned to production in an LCA. And
that comes down in favour of the use of steel in the life
cycle, because steel causes lower CO2 emissions than
any of its competitors.
“It is of course important”, says Langerak, “how this is
addressed in European legislation, which is currently
based exclusively on emissions from cars. For 2020, the
European Commission has stipulated a target of average
CO2 emissions of 95 grams per kilometre. I expect that
a change will then occur and that Brussels will set standards based on Life Cycle Assessment, which the automotive industry will follow.”
Steel is high-tech
Langerak is certain that steel will remain the standard in
the future. He underlines that view with figures for the
global consumption of the various types of materials in
2012 and forecasts for 2030, which show that demand
for High Strength steel will treble from 13 to 40 million
tons between now and 2030. Although demand for
conventional steel will decline from 30 to 15 million
tons during that period, that is not offset by a substantial increase in demand for the competing materials.
Only the use of aluminium is projected to grow by
more in relative terms, from one million tons now to
roughly six million tons in 2030. The consumption of
magnesium, composites (carbon fibres) and other plastics will remain relatively low in 2030 at one, two and
two million tons, respectively. The only development
that could alter that scenario is the arrival of self-driving
cars, Langerak suggests facetiously. “If everyone were to
start driving autonomously in future, in theory vehicles
would never crash, so you would no longer have to
make cars crash resistant. But that is not going to happen any time soon. The future definitely lies with steel.
The volumes will increase and there will be greater
demand for advanced types of steel. Steel used to be a
commodity, it is now high-tech!” t
Source: Boston Consulting Group
Global demand for materials (in mln ton)