EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

This paper provides a short overview of recent steel market developments considering the global steel oversupply and recessions in some emerging economies. The enormous Chinese overcapacity combined with their lower demand is a major reason for the deterioration on the steel market. The general steel demand also declines due to slow growth or even reductions in technology fields like ship building, thermal power plants, infrastructural needs or even the automotive industry. Nevertheless, environmental and energy-efficient production routes are of primary interest, which are partly handled by thin strip production. TMCP remains a main research field for many applications. Increased demands are expected regarding enhanced strength for light-weight design, improved toughness to ensure safety in case of earthquakes and fires or improved formability to overcome geometrical limits. New steel grades like bainitic steels, nano-crystalline materials, TWIP-steel or grain-oriented electrical sheet metals have led to advanced quality criteria also for rolling plants. Some recent examples of innovative processing optimizations will be described which require not only process monitoring but also model-based simulation and real-time online control. Finally, it will be stated that new holistic strategies are necessary to overcome the future challenges.