CiSMA: Circular Steel for Mass Market Applications

Project Information

CISMA

Grant agreement ID: 101177798

DOI

10.3030/101177798

EC signature date 1 October 2024

Start date 1 November 2024

End date 30 April 2028

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 4 380 528,50

EU contribution

€ 4 380 528,50

Coordinated by

FUNDACIO EURECAT
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CISMA (CiSMA: Circular Steel for Mass Market Applications)

Reporting period: 2024-11-01 to 2026-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The aim of the project is to introduce scrap-based Electric Arc Furnace steel products into mass-market sheet metal consumer goods with high-quality requirements, currently served with Blast Furnace+ Basic Oxygen Furnace steel. This includes developing a toolbox of enabling technologies in the form of test methodologies and Machine Learning-enhanced modelling tools to accommodate these materials and demonstrating them in a full Value Chain, from scrap to end users.

This objective implies gaining knowledge on which trace elements are present in the available fluxes of scrap, determining how trace elements affect steel properties; notably formability, strength, fracture toughness, fatigue, surface chemistry and hydrogen embrittlement; and establishing safe thresholds for established use cases. The pursued use cases correspond to consumer goods where BOF is used due to composition requirements.
Detailed analyses will be used to comprehend how these residuals interact with the base steel (precipitation, phase transformations), including advanced characterization through synchrotron and Atom Probe Tomography.
Scrap as a raw material will be studied, together with methodologies to improve its quality. The aim is to maximize the use of low-quality scrap for a given target amount of residuals, through the use of techniques that separate undesired inclusions from the main stream of steel, focusing on Copper and high alloy steels.
In order to account for material variability, two approaches will be followed. First, to develop tests to generate material performance data much quicker and cheaper than the ones currently available, thus ensuring that frequent or even online testing can be deployed. Second, to develop machine learning (ML) enhanced techniques for modelling that can take this material variability into account and integrate it into a process digital twin.
These developments will be showcased in pilot trials in two mass-market applications: automotive industry and white goods. These trials will have the objective of ensuring that the material and production route developed in CiSMA can be readily accepted by the market, demonstrate the developed toolset of enabling technologies, and quantify the environmental improvements achieved compared to the current product.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The accomplishments in the first Reporting Period are:
• Definition of material grades and requirements (WP6-> WP1) :WP6 deals with the definition of the Use Cases. In Task 6.1 the decision of which grades would be included in the project has been taken, defining the base alloys, requirements in terms of properties and format, and expected delivery conditions.
• This has been used to confirm the alloys in WP1 and WP5, refining the use cases stated in the proposal and evaluating a list of possible alternative candidates. The final decision has been to focus on one High Strength grade, one cold rolled high formability HSLA, an interstitial-free grade and a and a hot rolled grade.
• Setup of an industrial scrap sorting demonstrator (WP2): an automated identification and robotic sorting line has been adapted to processing steel scrap. The first results have been encouraging, and have helped identifying the main potential and challenes of the technology.
• Identification of residual elements in available commercial scrap fluxes (WP2-> WP1): WP2 has begun with the analysis of the current scrap fluxes. This has been useful to confirm the state of the art description of common contaminants and residual element contents, and update this knowledge for the European scrap market in 2025-2026.
• Laboratory Casts: (WP1-> WP3 and WP4): All of these results have been used in the definition of compositions for the laboratory cast steels. For each of the use cases defined in WP6, a design of experiments was proposed using residual contents based on the state of the art, but also on the observations obtained in WP2. This DoE includes more than 30 compositions.
• Material produced in WP1 is to be used in WP3 and WP4 for the characterization of material under different compositions, and the construction of complex finite element models.
• Establishment of Data Driven Modelling tools for sheet metal forming (W4): for the use cases in the project, DDM have been developed able to quickly perform simulation including variability in material properties.
All these achievements will be expanded in the second Reporting Period, and used as a base to accomplish the main achievements of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This first RP has dealt with generating the base knowledge for the rest of the project. Therefore, no exploitable results beyond the current state of the art have been generated.