Dynamic control of gas processes during heat treatment of steel, DynaSty

Important results from the project

The project was very successful. Reduction of direct CO2 emissions by 40-45% for case hardening and 50% for neutral hardening was achieved without increased costs. A digital twin was developed and the optimization of the case hardening process worked very well. The developed recipes gave large reductions in emissions and the hardening results matched experimentally measured results well.

Expected long term effects

The project will lead to that several companies will be reducing CO2 emissions from their heat treatment. In addition, where applicable, they will switch from an inflexible way of generating process gases to a more modern system that allows for variable CO levels in the furnace gas. This will help in the transition before replacing the equipment to vacuum-based processes.

Approach and implementation

In the first step, a digital twin of the system was built where the equations involved were validated through experiments. In the next step, existing furnace programs were optimized to provide as low emissions as possible but with the same time required. This was validated through experiments. Finally, industrial trials were carried out on a larger scale.