Russia’s Prometey Central Scientific Research Institute of Structural Materials has achieved a global technology breakthrough, says its general director Alexei Oryshchenko.
Prometey has developed a technology that allows for considerable economizing on alloying of steels. The institute, a branch of Kurchatov Institute National Research Center that specializes in manufacturing construction materials, is known to have created the armor for the T-34 tank in the second half of the 1930s; following the Great Patriotic War in the 1950s, the research institution switched to developing and producing materials for shipbuilders.
“All surface and submarine vessels are made from materials developed by Prometey. Hulls, bulkheads and rigs are all made with the use of our technologies and delivered to wharfs by manufacturing plants”, Alexei Oryshchenko emphasized.
The research organization’s scope of activities is broader, though. The director may soon announce a new breakthrough technology in tube rolling or nuclear energy.
Alloy steel is a material that contains special additional elements that considerably improve its mechanic and physical characteristics. In Russia, a total of 29 types of steel of different chemical composition are used for civil and military fleet. The strength of various samples begins from 150 megapascals and increases manifold. Greater strength requires a greater number of alloying elements – primarily, these are nickel and molybdenum, which are rather expensive. Although, says Oryshchenko, the periodic table of elements already seems not enough for creating something radically new. Such steel properties as strength and plasticity traditionally contradict each other – is it common knowledge that the stronger the steel the more fragile it is.
In fact, research efforts in creating new types of steel had come to a deadlock, and Prometey’s new technology arrived with perfect timing. Specialists proposed improving steel properties not through adding chemical elements but through rolling process – multistage gradual structure refinement.
“Initially, the properties of material were determined solely by its chemical composition. But today, due to new technologies, alloying is becoming less necessary. A technology that allows rolling a necessary dispersed structure is sufficient enough,” Oryshchenko noted.
However, not at any rolling mill can perform such a ‘miracle’. There are only three such mills in Russia and not a single one abroad. The demand for alloying additives has recently reduced two-fold. The specific amount of metal per structure is also reducing, and production time is being reduced by 40%. By the way, the usual collision between durability and plasticity is being eliminated and they begin to complement each other.
“We have received an approval from the Russian Government that we will develop new state standards and will introduce our casting and rolling technology to all relevant enterprises in the country,” said the Prometey director. “These steels will enter the market as soon as the next year.”
Moreover, the necessary amount of steel might be produced for the construction of the hull of the Lider (Leader) nuclear-powered icebreaker. Oryshchenko promises that this would save some RUR 2-3 bln ($31 mio-$47 mio) in construction.
It was not an accident that the icebreaker construction will become a field test for the new technology. First, the Russian shipbuilding industry is traditionally strong. Korean shipyards were once going to build four ice-class gas carriers for Russian customers. When they calculated the future width of the vessels’ sides according to the features of their steels, it was about 60 mm. This means, such a gas carrier would carry itself in the first place, and then natural gas. At the same time, the width of the sides of Russian-made icebreakers that are supposed to go through 4-meter ice do not exceed 30 mm.
Secondly, Russia is currently implementing an ambitious program to renovate the icebreaker fleet for the Northern Sea Route. In particular, Rosatom nuclear state corporation general director Alexei Likhachyov said at the Arctic Forum that the region’s icebreaker fleet currently includes the 50 Let Pobedy flagship and three icebreakers of a lower class: Yamal, Vaigach and Taimyr. In 2020-2022, the icebreakers Ural, Sibir and Arktika will be launched. Plans call for launching an entire flotilla by 2030, which will be headed by the Lider.