Designed for Iron & Steel

Iron & Steel Solutions

The modern iron and steel manufacturing process, starting from ores and scrap over primary and secondary metallurgy processes to billets, bars, plates, wires and various other finished products, is one of the most complex, continuous processes applied in modern large-scale industries. At the same time, steel manufacturers face economic challenges with a complex and competitive agenda. One key success factor is a complete quality control from the raw materials to the final product in every step of the process.

Industrial Process & Quality Control

Highlights

Schematic Process flow of an integrated steel plant.

Because every process step poses individual analytical requirements, there is no single analytical technique matching all requirements. In fact, multiple, complementary techniques are used and will become more imperative to optimize cost and quality.

At Bruker, we use our analytical knowledge to provide quality and processes control for iron and steelmaking producers throughout the whole supply chain – from product development and production to quality control and incoming goods inspections. We supply complete systems to reliably identify and quantify compounds and trace elements.

Technologies

CS/ONH

Carbon impacts hardness, brittleness & melting point and is the dominant alloying element in the liquid metal. Sulfur is a generally undesirable element but may be added to enhance machinability. The content of the so called “gases in metals”, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen needs to be tightly controlled at every step. Bruker’s Combustion (C, S) and Fusion instruments (O, N, H) are the ideal tools to control the content of these important elements with highest accuracy, especially in difficult matrices like iron, steels and cast iron.

EDS, WDS, EBSD, SEM micro-XRF

To extend your SEM/TEM analytical power, Bruker’s electron microscope analyzers EDS, WDS, EBSD and Micro-XRF on SEM offer the most comprehensive compositional and structural analysis of materials, including analytical software for advanced materials research, process development and failure analysis.

HH-XRF

Handheld XRF (HH-XRF) spectrometers bring the power of Energy Dispersive XRF (EDXRF) everywhere in the steel mill. Their ultra-low weight in combination with the analytical versatility make them ideal tools for fast and flexible inspection of incoming raw materials like scrap, ores and additives with almost none sample preparation. Each analysis provides elemental concentration, alloy identification and scrap value.

OES

Without doubts, spark Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES) is the work horse for metal analysis. OES covers the analysis of the chemical elements at the complete range from sub-ppm to percentage levels, from impurity analysis in pure metals to high alloyed grades. All relevant elements are simultaneously analyzed with easy sample preparation. Its speed, ease-of-use and low operation costs is what makes OES so versatile and beneficial. The robustness of the OES based metal analyzers allows the operation in all relevant environments.

XRF

X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis is one of the best analytical techniques to perform elemental analysis. It combines high accuracy and precision with simple sample preparation and handles different sample types: solids, pressed pellets, fused beads and liquids safely and quickly. Wavelength Dispersive XRF (WDXRF) provides the analytical flexibility for a one need for all materials in the iron and steel industry, ranging from metals, refractories, additivities and slags.

XRD

Crystallographic structure, material properties and phase analysis of crystalline and amorphous powders, bulk materials and thin films.