Stainless Steel—the Choice for Ecosustainability

Dear Colleagues,

The basic stainless steel sustainable dimensions are environmental/planetary, social/human, and economic/profit. If we connect this with sustainable manufacturing, the main purposes are environmental acceptability, lower processing costs, minimum energy consumption, healthcare staff, waste reduction, and operational safety.

The basic conditions for corrosion resistance of steels are a minimum of 12% Cr and mono-phase microstructure. Therefore, stainless steels are divided according to the microstructure into austenitic, ferritic, martensitic, and duplex steels (austenitic–ferritic microstructure). Since there are no corrosive products that pollute the environment, and because of recyclability, stainless steels are environmentally friendly materials. Additionally, stainless steel production does not emit a significant amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). Due to all of the above, stainless steels can be called “green materials”. Thus, reducing, reusing, and recycling are key to protecting the environment.

The machining of stainless steel is interesting because of its excellent mechanical properties. Stainless steels are machined mainly via traditional machining processes, but the complex shapes and features of products are difficult tasks to complete using traditional metal cutting techniques. To machine advanced materials for high dimensional precision and create complex shapes in hard-to-machine materials, such as stainless steel, non-traditional machining techniques are now attractive as a sustainable choice. To achieve improved machining performances, it is always necessary to find optimal combinations of various process input parameters. In the sustainable machining process, cutting tool life, productivity, and resource efficiency will increase, while production costs, energy (power) required for cutting and the harmful effects of coolants and lubricants will decrease. Accordingly, modeling and optimization of stainless steel sustainable machining and stainless steel sustainable machining with alternative cooling and lubrication methods can be considered. Conventional mineral oil-based metalworking fluids are harmful to the environment and human health, and they bring significant additional costs to production. Therefore, there is an awareness of stainless steel sustainable machining, so alternative cooling and lubrication techniques are increasingly being developed with a strategy of combining different alternative techniques that can complement each other by overcoming the limitations of each.

The sustainability of stainless steel additive manufacturing is also an important topic of research in this area covered through environmental and economic evaluation, including stainless steel material recyclability and life cycle assessment and cost.

Stainless steel can be used in metal forming processes, and it can be formed into any shape or profile. In the metal forming process, sustainability evaluation is being proven through environmental aspects, energy consumption, emission of greenhouse gases, amount of material, and sustainable lubricants used in the process.

This Special Issue is intended for stainless steel research in sustainable machining and metal forming processes and additive manufacturing as a choice for ecosustainability. There is still a lack of knowledge around stainless steel sustainable manufacturing. In this Special Issue, we invite you to submit a worthwhile contribution to this still-under-researched field.

Prof. Dr. Zoran Jurkovic
Prof. Dr. Graciela Šterpin Valić
Prof. Dr. Sonja Jozić
Dr. Tihana Kostadin
Guest Editors

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