On June 15th, 2023, the Spanish Association of Companies Producing Steel and Primary Steel Processing Products (UNESID), in collaboration with the Spanish Steel Technology Platform (PLATEA), carried out an in-person industrial workshop titled as “No More Cracking: The Potential of Fracture Toughness for the Development and Application of High-Performance Steels” in Bilbao (Spain).
The workshop brought together stakeholders from the steelmaking sector in the Basque Country area in Spain. Its main objective was to introduce new quality criteria centred around fracture toughness to enhance the development of sheet steel products.
Additionally, the workshop addressed the progress made in standardising a more efficient testing method based on the Essential Work of Fracture (EWF) methodology to measure this property.
The event began with Santiago Oliver, Director of Sustainability, Energy, and Innovation at UNESID, and Milena Ferrari, Technical Secretariat of PLATEA, welcoming the participants. The workshop featured two presentations by David Frómeta, coordinator of the ToughSteel project and leader of the mechanical behaviour line at Eurecat‘s Metallic and Ceramic Materials Unit.
In his first presentation, he introduced the ToughSteel project, followed by a presentation on a methodology that enhances the development of sheet steel products by incorporating new quality criteria based on fracture toughness.
Following that, Javier López-Quiles, Project Manager from the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE), presented the standardisation documents associated with novel methodologies for predicting the behaviour of materials and components during forming and service.
Additionally, the event included a round table, moderated by Santiago Oliver, where representatives from various steel companies deliberated on the future challenges in the development and application of high-performance steels. In particular, the discussion was participated by Aintzane Exposito, Materials Engineer at Vicinay Marine Innovación, and Juan José Laraudogoitia, R+D Director at Sidenor.
