Recent Advances in Metallurgical Process Engineering

Dear Colleagues,

The metallurgical sector is one of the main pillars of European, and indeed global, industry. Metallurgy is important not only for the modern economy of developed countries, but is also essential for building the infrastructure of developing countries. Therefore, the demand for metallurgy is expected to grow in the coming decades to meet growing social and economic needs.

Increasing demand for metallurgical products on the world and domestic markets, as well as current geopolitical and economic events, are creating pressure to innovate and optimize current processes in the metallurgical sector.

The global climate goals for the period 2030 to 2050 will place strong pressure on the decarbonization of the metallurgical industry. This must be reflected in a significant change in steel production processes. The metallurgical industry produces approximately 8% of CO2 emissions worldwide. The transformation itself should take place during production, with minimal limitation to production volume, in order to ensure not only employment, but also that the demand for steel is met.

By optimizing and innovating the production process through the introduction of low-carbon technologies and alternative energy sources, digitalization and automatization, and increasing the efficiency of raw materials and energy resources, the metallurgical sector has a great ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make energy consumption more efficient, thus increasing its competitiveness.

At present there is a global demand for energy transformation, the essential goal of which is to significantly reduce the burden of emissions. The energy consumption required for each process step is governed by the efficiency of the best-available manufacturing equipment and the essential process physics of the manufacturing operation. Another possible strategy for improving the efficiency of energy-intensive sectors includes the extension of the lifetime of components in production units. Therefore, there is space for researchers to find new high-quality steels, for example, to produce heat-exchanger superheater tubes.

Both the increasing demand for metallurgical products on the global and domestic markets as well as current geopolitical and economic events are creating pressure to innovate and optimize current processes in the metallurgical sector.

One focus of modern metallurgical processes is the application of additive manufacturing, 3D welding, organic design, complex material analysis, modern virtualization tools and numerical simulations, and the digitization of steel components for mechanical engineering. An integral aspect is the optimization of the components for mechanical engineering using organic design to improve technological and utility properties. New findings will lead to a reduction in the energy and material demands of the production.

A general task is to engage in research and development regarding the digitization of metallurgical processes using a combination of modern virtualization tools such as numerical simulation, digitization of key components, collection, sorting, visualization and the evaluation of data from the production process with the possibility of optimizing numerical simulation parameters. One integral aspect could be the overall streamlining of the production process preparation, implementation and optimization.

This Special Issue will be dedicated to new perspectives in the metallurgical sector as well as advances in metallurgical process engineering.

Dr. Branislav Bul’ko
Dr. Mária Hagarová
Dr. Dana Baricová
Guest Editors

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