ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe, the Fraunhofer Institute for Materials and Beam Technology IWS, and LIMO have initiated development work on a new laser technology that the partners will use to improve the properties of steel strip surfaces. The collaboration is part of a research project by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is scheduled to be completed by 2017.
In November, the Dortmund-based LIMO Lissotschenko Mikrooptik launched its largest joint research project to date, which will see the company contribute EUR 3.6M to the BMBF’s OSLO project. This four-letter German project acronym stands for ‘surface-functionalised steel strip materials using laser surface treatment in a continuous wide-strip process’.
Photo courtesy of Limo
Together, the Duisburg-based ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe (TKSE), the Dortmund Project Group of the Fraunhofer Institute for Materials and Beam Technology (IWS) and LIMO will research how the properties of ferrous steel strip materials can be influenced in a targeted manner by laser surface treatment in a continuous in-line wide-strip process.
The success of the OSLO project hinges on the laser system and beam-shaping unit for the short-time heat treatment of the coated steel strip scheduled to be used in the demonstration machine at TKSE in Dortmund under conditions closely simulating real-life production.
