Partners

Eurecat is the leading Technology Centre of Catalonia, providing the industrial and business sector with differential technology and advanced expertise. The centre offers solutions to their innovation needs and boosts their competitiveness in a fast-paced environment. It brings together the expertise of 650 professionals who generate a volume of income of 50M€ per year. Serving more than a thousand companies, Eurecat is involved in more than 200 national and international R&D projects with high strategic value.

www.eurecat.org 

Voestalpine Stahl GmbH is part of voestalpine AG, a stock exchange listed company, and the Group's leading company in the Steel Division. It is the steel competence centre within the voestalpine group. At its production site in Linz, around 6600 employees work in the manufacturing and processing of flat steel, hot rolled sheet as well as highly refined cold rolled steel sheets. R&D is focused on: a) optimising the steel production process in regard to quality, environment and energy efficiency, b) development and optimisation of high and highest strength steels and their application features as well as the development of new coatings. The R&D labs are equipped with the state of the art equipment for lab processing of materials and characterization and testing.

Research and development are key to the strategy of ArcelorMittal, worldwide leader in the steel industry. In particular, the Automotive Products center is central to the birthplace of the new steels for the automotive industry. In addition to this activity of development, the center has a wide experience in the field of experimental study and modeling of metallurgical evolution during thermo-mechanical treatments dedicated to flat products (hot rolled and cold rolled steels). Support to our customers, manufacturers and OEMs, assistance with the processing of these new steels and technical support also form part of the mission of the Automotive Products center.

CRF, founded in 1978, has the mission to develop and transfer innovative products, processes and methodologies in order to improve the competitiveness of the products of the FCA. Also through the cooperation with a pan-European and increasingly global network of more than 1700 partners from Industry and academia, CRF conducts collaborative research initiatives at the national and international levels in partnership with all the key public and private stakeholders concerned with Sustainable Mobility, targeting specifically the industrial exploitation of research.

CRF develops research and innovation along the three principal axes of sustainability: Environmental Sustainability, which encompasses all aspects relating to energy efficiency as well as to the reduction of the impact on the environment over the entire lifecycle of the vehicle; Social Sustainability, focusing on the safety of transportation ystems through the development of active, passive, preventive and cooperative solutions while addressing the mobility of all users irrespective of their specific needs; Economically sustainable competitiveness, oriented towards viable innovation, i.e., improving the performance and functionality of new vehicles in a cost-effective manner.

The research by the group at the Division of Mechanics of Solid Materials of LTU has been focused on phenomena connected to the mechanics of granular material interaction processes and the resulting material and component properties. The aim of the research is to be able to predict the material and process response during the complete process as well as the final material state and properties of the component. Tools for process prediction are numerical methods for large deformation mechanical deformation analyses, including thermo-mechanical coupling as well as modelling of friction, wear and heat transfer in the contact interfaces. Achievements made in the research are based on long term industrial collaborations and the focus on industrial processes. An example is the cooperation with LKAB, the largest European producer iron ore pellets that have a transportation system for their products in sub-arctic conditions. As well as the cooperation with steel producer SSAB for study wear in different transportation systems.