Steel Mills
ArcelorMittal R&D Chicago Selected for Supercomputing Grants
Written by Sandy Williams
August 28, 2020
ArcelorMittal Global Research and Development in East Chicago was awarded two High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing Program (HPC4Mfg) grants from the Department of Energy. The grants are part of $3.3 million in federal funding for 11 manufacturing and materials projects focused on solving technical challenges in manufacturing and materials development in the U.S.
“These awards from the DOE engage national labs and industry to benefit industry and ultimately conserve energy,” said Mark Atkinson, senior director, ArcelorMittal Global Research and Development, East Chicago. “High-performance computing (HPC) capitalizes on the computational horsepower that exists in the national labs that we do not have at ArcelorMittal. Together, we can solve complicated problems and accelerate product development to meet our stringent quality and sustainability goals.”
Grant 1 partners ArcelorMittal with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory to establish a method for rapid product development of next-generation high-strength steels. The typical product development lifetime cycle is approximately 4-6 years; the labs and ArcelorMittal will use HPC at the atomistic scale and artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the development time.
Grant 2 partners the company with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Purdue University Northwest to reduce the yield loss caused by impurities forming in the refining ladle process. Impurities can only be removed when steel is molten. This study, taking place at the ladle at Indiana Harbor’s #3 steel producing operation, will examine techniques to produce cleaner steels for customers. The goal is to conserve energy for ArcelorMittal USA by increasing the probability of melting steel correctly the first time.
HPC will allow faster calculations to evaluate multiple scenarios in a shorter time with the end goal of achieving process efficiency, which will reduce energy consumption at ArcelorMittal.
Sandy Williams
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