Impressions on ICASS 2002

The present state and development of steel research

Dr. Giuliano Buzzichelli, Centro Sviluppo Materiali S.p.A., Italy

I want first to send my warmest greetings to all of you on behalf of my Company, CSM, and to express my pleasure for being here and participating in this important ICASS event. In this moment, as the political integration of the European Union is accelerating, big rearrangements are taking place in the various steel companies to maintain the competitiveness and to control the market evolutions in a better way.

Nevertheless, despite the significant reductions and rationalization operations, steel research is perfectly alive. The European governments have made a decision to continue with the successful experience of ECSC sponsored research, with a new treaty from July 2002.

However, it is now time to make a serious attempt to introduce the drastic improvements in steel products as a leverage for new markets, hopefully in conjunction with the parallel efforts by design engineers, fabricators and end users.

In this sense the overall targets of R&TD in Europe and in Japan are perfectly matched, even if the western countries seem to be slightly behind Japan in the development of new steels. On the other hand such a big economic effort, undertaken by a single State Member would not be conceivable at the present time. Therefore, the launching of a proper action will probably have to wait till the start of the next 6th Framework Program, possibly towards the end of this year.  In the meantime, research aimed at the consistent improvements of structural steels are being conducted in various Laboratories, Centres, and Universities, and a first project on "ultrasteel" began recently with financial aid from ECSC.

Hence, steel is showing a renewed life and is difficult to substitute by other materials. Furthermore, many aspects are related to the innovative fabrication technologies. It could also be defined as a "high tech" material, not a ”mature" one. As was certain in the past, steel will again be the future!

It is now clear that a further effort is requested to us, the metallurgists and alloy designer’s community, to render the new performance steel to become more and more eco-compatible and recyclable to sustain the growth of our society. This is the real challenge for all of us in the future, and many resources must be concentrated in this direction. Therefore, with a reciprocal encouragement for good work, please accept the very best wishes from your Western colleague and "see you in China for the next ICASS conference, that "I hope will certainly be as interesting and of a quality as high as this one".