Over several decades, steel plays an important role in global economic growth as
it is an indispensible part for development of a nation. As a result, continual
improvement in steel technology is must for sustainable economic growth of a nation.
Towards achieving this aim numerous dedicated steel researcher centres in academic
institution or university as well as corporate research and development centres
of global steel producing companies have been established and operating with significant
impact on world economy. Steel research centres have strong potential for playing
a significant role on global development as overall wellbeing of people in the world
is reflected by their per capita consumption of steel. World-wide economic scenario
continues to be challenging but appears to be bottoming out. Therefore, global economic
growth mostly in developing country like India, China and Brazil requires high utilization
of steel in coming years. Recent trends of world-wide steel consumptions show that
the quality issues regarding steel will be much stringent in future. Detail statistical
analysis of economic strata of a country indicates that techno-economic growth of
a country is highly dependent on its steel production. India, being the fourth largest
producer of steel of the world, still starving hard to improve its quality. Overcapacity
in the Chinese steel industry is of great concern as it results in prices reduction
not only globally but in India also. Amidst this competitive scenario, steel makers
in India also started to face the rising prices of domestic raw iron ore whereas
international prices of steel continue to decline. The available technology in Indian
steel industry is due for rigorous improvement to sustain global competition. Requirement
of cutting edge technology become essential for obtaining quantum jump in steel
industry productivity as aimed by government of India as well as for matching with
stringent quality criteria. However in India, constant effort towards better mining
and import of better grade raw material is continuing but the striking fact is that
the civilization is depleting the worldwide rich ore reserves at a very high rate.
Utilization of low grade raw material with cheaper technology and green process
become an important issue for steel industry globally. India has to find some technological
way out to address this challenge. Research and development related to steel industry
are essential to improve existing technology or introduce a new technology, Indian
steel industry lacks evidently in this aspect. Maximum steel makers of India do
not possess a dedicated research and development center for steel industry. Constant
effort for new technology and handling of day to day problem is the need of time
and some steel research center should address these nationally. Such centre should
have multidirectional activity to empower running of all the components of a steel
plant. Such an institution can only sustain with constant input from industry and
possible output or solutions by its expert. Moreover, such institute can address
more problems if it is in geographically favorably located. Odisha is enriched with
mines of iron ores and consequently several steel industries are located in this
state. Rourkela is one of the significant steel cities in India. In backdrop of
such national condition and favorable geographical location, the steel research
center at NIT Rourkela become very effective and help full for Indian steel sector.
Already Metallurgical and Materials engineering department along with other department
of NIT Rourkela has proven research record in the areas related steel. Research
focuses of the steel research centre on projects addressing some of the most pressing
concerns of steel sector: understanding issues of steel industry and discovering
the solutions through academic and industrial collaborative relation. The Centre
currently focuses on improvement of different industrial process in steel sector
through modeling and simulation, environmental and techno-economic issues related
to steel industry. The institute is successfully conducting a post graduate course
namely M Tech with specialization in Steel technology. The programme is multidisciplinary
and designed to train student of different branch for working in steel sector. The
institute is giving M Tech degree in their basic engineering with specialization
in steel technology (e.g. M Tech in electrical engineering with specialization in
steel technology). To make effective industry-academy interaction one proposal titled
“Coupled CFD-thermodynamic-kinetic simulation and physical modeling of basic oxygen
steel making process” is being submitted to Steel Development Fund, Ministry of
Steel, Govt. of India.
The steel research centre is ready and well equipped to broaden the focus to provide
all kinds of technical support to steel industry and pursue fundamental research
on steel in more wide fashion as our institutes has a large pool of experts in different
discipline, required for successful operation of a good steel research center. This
broad vision of the centre includes following micro visions;
Nurture talent, foster team work and enhance leadership quality to the students
and professional, who will be trained in the center.
Become a one stop solution center for proving all kinds of technological support
to steel industry
Work for developing leading edge solutions in technology, processes and products
related to steel industry
The steel research centre follows certain missions for materializing its broad vision,
as summarized below:
To carry out research and solve problems related to iron and steel production in
terms of quality, productivity, environment and safety.
To train superior human resource for Indian iron and steel sector for achieving
global competitiveness.
To perform pioneering research leading to a range of new and improved products related
to steel sector.
To maximize the productivity of the centre several groups have been formed as mentioned
below:
Syllabi structure, list of R & D Labs and PG programme of steel tech.
Instrumentation, automation and control
Modeling and simulation
Refractory Group
Energy and chemical management
Environmental Group
Mechanical processing and steel utilization
Process improvement from mining to marketing
Resource conservation
Data management for quality
The institute continuously strives to get well equipped with all advanced instrumental
facilities to facilitate the ongoing
research activities.
|