SPRAY FORMING LARGE-DIAMETER SPECIAL STEEL BILLETS

This project is of four years duration and is carried out with the fin ancial aid of the European Coal and Steel Community. It has the fundam ental aim of demonstrating the applicability of spray forming as a via ble process for industrial scale steel production. The Osprey process has potential for the production of billets in special steels. However , earlier studies had shown that the technology was not developed suff iciently to permit production on an industrial scale. This was because of an absence of the understanding of the process control required fo r large billets. The objective of the project has been to extend the t echnology of spray forming steel in the horizontal mode to produce bil lets up to 400mm diameter and by up to 1200kg in weight. Work conducte d within the project is described including the construction of the de monstration plant, commissioning, process development, evaluation and extension of the process from the initial trials an D2 steel to other materials.