Technology and capital goods group voestalpine awarded the Steel Research Award, which comes with EUR 12,000 in prize money, for the first time. Ronald Schnitzer, the R&D Head of the specialist department for cored wires and stick electrodes at voestalpine Böhler Welding Austria, was the clear winner from amongst 18 entrants who submitted high-quality research projects in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, processing technology and their application.
The awards ceremony for the voestalpine Steel Research Award was held during the ASMET forum at the Montanuniversität Leoben. Twelve dissertations were considered from the 18 submitted projects. Ronald Schnitzer’s paper on the ‘Structure-Properties Relationship of a Stainless Maraging Steel’ fulfilled all the evaluation criteria, and stood out for its scientific relevance, timeliness, originality, practicality and feasibility. Schnitzer researched the correlations between atomic structure and material characteristics for a new high-strength, high-tech steel for use in the aerospace industry. The results play a key role in understanding this new class of steel. The independent jury of experts included representatives from the Montanuniversität Leoben, the Graz University of Technology and the management at voestalpine Group Research.
Photo courtesy of voestalpine AG
Schnitzer has run the specialist R&D department for cored wires and stick electrodes with its 17 employees since 2014. Prior to that, he was head of the New Product Development and Applied Research departments at Böhler Schweißtechnik.
