SEMINAR

Micro, Small and Medium Industries (MSME) Technology Development Centre, Agra in collaboration with CSIR - National Metallurgical Lab, Jamshedpur organized a seminar on ‘Recent Innovations In Metallurgical Industries’ at United Schools Organizations Of India (Uso House) Delhi on 24th August 2014. Two Faculty members Mr. Lokesh Kumar and Mr. Amit Narwal on behalf of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended the seminar.

The key speakers of the event were:

1. Prof. K.L. Sahoo, Principal Scienist NML Jamshedpur,

2. Dr. P.C. Maity, Metal Casting and Materials Engineer

3. Mr. Satyendra Kumar Sarna, Former ED (Works), RINL & Former MD, NINL

Prof. Sahoo inaugurated the seminar and gave a brief introduction about their team and their work. He said that the metallurgical industry of India developing in the recent days and has reached the stage of buying up plants all over the world, which is taking India to new scale of confidence and ambition.

Mr. Sarna explained about the metallurgical innovations with reference to Indian forging industries. He discussed in details about the CTD and TMT bars and the process of Forging. He said that Innovation takes place in the form of new process that replaces old process. Like converter steel making process replacing open hearth process, continuous casting replacing ingot casting and quenching of coke replacing wet quenching of coke etc. He further said that innovation is small changes/addition to the process without changing the basic nature of the process. Like introduction of bell less top and pulverized coal injection in blast furnace, introduction of combined blowing to converter steel making, introduction of slag splashing to improve converter lining and introduction of no twist block in wire rod mills etc.

Innovation can be in the form of development of new products that have superior characteristics and replace the old products. Examples are TMT rebars replacing CTD rebars, ductile iron replacing malleable iron. He gave examples of weather resistant steels and micro alloyed steels. Development of advanced high strength steels (AHSS) for automotive application to support the weight reduction program of the automobiles is one of the finest examples of the product innovativeness in the steel industry.

Prof. Sahoo delivered a lecture on the recent innovations in casting technology. He discussed about the Brassware cluster in Moradabad where nearly 35000 employees are associated with it. HE step by step highlighted the the process followed by them:-

1. Procuring raw materials from the market

2. Melting in Furnace with Coke Addition

3. Casting

4. Cooling

5. Painting

6. Finishing

He said that the conventional furnace used by them emitted hevy smoke. Due to this problem, the workers suffered from deadly diseases. This furnace was replaced with modified furnace manufactured in National Metallurgical Laboratory ( a constituent of CSIR) . The amount of coke saved by using this furnace amounted to 20% as compared to conventional furnace.

Prof. P. C. Maity provided a brief introduction about various casting techniques which are being used now days. He mainly focused on semi-solid metal (SSM) casting and high pressure die casting (HPDC). He said that SSM is a specialized casting process which is basically of semi-solid Al and Mg alloys. He added that automotive light alloy castings, that were earlier being produced by HPDC of liquid alloys are now cast by HPDC of semi-solid alloys due to its unique advantages.

The seminar ended with a valedictory session. It was a very knowledgeable session as the participants came to know a lot on metallurgical industry.