Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation (TECNALIA)

The project will be developed in the Industry and Transport Division that is focused on the design, manufacturing, maintenance and end-of-life of industrial products and services, for the improvement of its clients’ competitiveness in the following strategic sectors: foundry and steelmaking, machine-tool, automotive, aerospace, aeronautics, railway, construction, de-manufacturing and food industry. Specifically, the project will be developed by the Foundry and Steelmaking Area with a long experience in the field of modelling steel manufacturing process and development of new steel grades, industrial experience in cast metal, tooling design and manufacturing and simulation of cast processes, mainly for the automotive sector. The area is well equipped with several simulation software tools (such as ThermoCalc, Dictra, Abaqus, Pam-Stamp 2G), melting & casting facilities, HPDC casting facilities for aluminium and magnesium (such as a HPDC complete cellule of 950t), a Gleeble 3800 machine, X-Stress 3000, thermal fatigue testing machine, as well as laboratories for metallographic and compositional analysis and microstructural and mechanical characterization of steels. SHS reactors up to around 10 kg of capacity are available with and without protective atmosphere.

Main tasks in the project:

• General management, coordination and dissemination actions will be led as project coordinator.
• Work in the development, validation of design and manufacturing of new steel grades and in the definition of the optimum reinforced steel process conditions. It will carry out a 3D forge formability analysis by Geeble essays for the newly steels, characterize lab samples and determine the residual stresses. The LCC and LCA calculations will also be made by TECNALIA.
• Collaborator in IPR protection activities.