By bringing together research institutes and leading companies within the steel industry, the ELROS project aims to find optimal ways of using electric heating in steel production. As one of the project’s participants Kanthal will be contributing with its technological solutions and expertise.
The project is being run by Swerim, the metals research institute within the scope of the Metallic Materials strategic innovation program. By optimizing electric heating solutions for large-scale furnaces, the project hopes to encourage the transition away from traditional gas-powered heating, This is an important contribution in reducing CO2 emissions from the steel industry.
The project will include simulations using different parameters for electric heating, which will be adapted for low alloy steel, stainless steel, and nickel-based alloys. Adaptations will also be made for various product shapes such as slabs, blooms, and billets, to capture geometric variations. The intention is to find the optimal combinations of inductive and resistive heating, taking into account temperature uniformity and energy efficiency. Based on these simulations, a pilot plant will be constructed by rebuilding a walking beam furnace in Luleå, Sweden, which is expected to be complete by 2023.
When completed, the Luleå pilot plant will provide a proof of concept and demonstrator of the possibilities offered by electric heating. It will also be used for further testing and evaluation of possible solutions for large-scale heating, made available as a test bed for experiments and trials when it comes to using different materials and parameters