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Steel with high mechanical and plastic properties with high wear resistance.
#Mechanical engineering
Business targets
The R&D team is working with the Clabecq site process team to develop a 3-15mm plate production process for Q&P family, the next generation of the commercially successful Q&T family marketed under the QUEND and QUARD brands.
Compared to Q&T, the new product will have an increased level of plasticity and wear resistance at the same level of strength properties.
Upon successful implementation of the project, NLMK will be the first company to produce Q&P steel as plates. This product will be in demand to produce lifting mechanisms, individual units of construction equipment that require increased wear resistance, as well as in the production of military vehicles.
Q&P will help NLMK customers create their own products with an increased service life, and the increase in plastic properties compared to the Q&T class helps expanding the use of bending operations in the manufacture of assemblies.
Implementation features
To ensure successful implementation, it was necessary to select proper chemical composition, as well as parameters of temperature treatment which would provide the target microstructure.
To search for the chemical composition of steel, heat treatment parameters, both a series of various computer models and laboratory tests were used together with an external partner — CRM Laboratory (Belgium).
After obtaining a sample of Q&P steel in laboratory conditions and measuring properties of the prototype, we started transferring the processes worked out in the laboratory to the level of industrial lines in Lipetsk and Clabecq. At the moment, the tasks of ensuring chemical and temperature uniformity are being solved throughout the volume of the plates produced. To solve these problems, we also use the methods of computer simulations including the study of temperature field of the plates across thickness when they pass the quenching machine and subsequent furnaces.
See also
Steel to Produce Cores for High Frequency or Large Motors
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