STEEL Applications for Low Investment manufacturing of high Value Elements

ongoing

The overall objective of STEEL-ALIVE is to accelerate the development of flexible, advanced sustainable steel manufacturing and quality monitoring processes that align with the EU's environmental goals while ensuring the industry's economic viability of Light Commercial Vehicle applications. STEEL-ALIVE aims to boost steel-based LCV-manufacturing by accelerating the establishment of a thoroughly simplified and highly flexible manufacturing process while reducing (i) the upfront investment (-80%) required for qualitative manufacturing as well as (ii) energy consumption (-70%), (iii) CO2 footprint at material/vehicle production level (-70%), (iv) production cost (30%) and (v) time to market (50%). STEEL-ALIVE outcomes will illustrate that production starting from AHSS tubes and AHSS flat sheets (to be cut, folded, punched and welded) is a superior alternative to other manufacturing approaches such as stamping or giga-casting. For this purpose, a comprehensive understanding and characterization of AHSS at both micro- and macro-scales to develop the innovative manufacturing technologies such as laser cutting, deforming (bending and punching), and welding on tubes will be generated, together with the creation of simulation models able to replicate the structural behaviour of AHSS at material and component scales. Also, recommendations/guidelines/training and certification programs on advanced welding techniques to ameliorate joining AHSS will be devised, which will be applicable to the entire steel industry. The selected use case applications (battery case, rear carrier box and body frame of LCVs) will be addressed adopting AHSS and radically novel designs and manufacturing approaches, avoiding the need for dies, presses, stamping and robotized assembling cells. This reduces the upfront investments to start large-scale manufacturing for OEMs and will allow to show the potential of manufacturing highly innovative steel solutions in a cost-effective manner in Europe.