A regular October half-term fixture, this year’s Swansea Science Festival provided a fantastic opportunity to inspire crowds about Materials Science and Engineering.

The 2024 SUSTAIN Conference, held at Swansea University's Bay Campus in July, brought together over 110 representatives from academia, industry, NGOs, and supply chain partners to explore the latest innovations in the UK steel sector.

The 7th Postgraduate Research Symposium on Ferrous Metallurgy 2024 was held at the historical Armourers Hall and was hosted by Materials Processing Institute (MPI), IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining) and Armourers & Braisiers’ Co. The symposium has been running since 2018 and is a great event for postgraduate researchers in the metallurgy field to come together, network and hear about research in the sector, with about 50 researchers attending every year.

SteelSIM 2023 was the 10th International Conference on Modelling and Simulation of Metallurgical Processes in Steelmaking, hosted by the WMG within the University of Warwick, in the heart of England on the outskirts of vibrant Coventry. Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) was established by Professor Lord Bhattacharyya in 1980 to ignite UK manufacturing in the Steels sector, making the University of Warwick the perfect location to host such a prestigious event.

Local school pupils recently had the chance to learn about Sustainability and Manufacturing in South Wales at an event hosted at Swansea University.

On 16th & 17th May 2023, the SUSTAIN Hub held their Task Updates & Board Meetings in the International Digital Laboratory (IDL) at the University of Warwick.

The Materials Research Exchange 2022 took place on 4th – 5th October, in the Business Design Centre in London. This annual event, organised and managed by Innovate UK KTN and Innovate UK, hosted projects and their research teams from across the UK to discuss their work with industrial representatives, investors and other experts in Materials disciplines.

On the 20th to 24th June 2022, EPSRC held an in person and virtual interactive showcase “Engineering Net Zero Week” to bring together researchers, industry leaders and policy makers.

Innovative Steel Processing Accelerating the Circular Economy, or “i-SPACE” is a WEFO ERDF funded project that will outline in a business case the resources required to set up and operate a state-of-the-art material separation and sorting Pilot Plant designed to process end-of-life components.

We are please to announce we have been able to make the majority of the talks from our 2021 Bi-Annual Conference available to watch on demand!

On the 1st and 2nd of December 2021, the SUSTAIN Future Manufacturing Research Hub held its second bi-annual conference, ‘Sustainability in Steel’.

The Steel and Metals Institute is part of SWITCH-Connect a collaborative network of multidisciplinary expertise across academia, industry and government

Swansea Science Festival 2021 saw the return of in-person events at the National Waterfront Museum and Oriel Science, combined with a selection of online offerings on the 23rd and 24th of October 2021.

The 12th Annual European Electric Steelmaking Conference was a prestigious event held at an equally prestigious facility, at the University of Sheffield. A city with a heritage built on Steel, was quite a fitting environment to engage and hear from the leading experts in the field of Electric Steelmaking on the latest advancements and challenges.

By Dr Qiushi Cao
Manufacturing processes are sets of structured operations to transform raw material or semi-finished product parts into further completed products. To ensure high productivity, availability, and efficiency of manufacturing processes, the detection of harmful tendencies and conditions of production lines is a crucial issue for manufacturers.

On 27th October and 24th November, the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) hosted two steel strategy seminars sponsored by the SUSTAIN Hub. The focus of these seminars was Industry 4.0, and brought together industrial and academic specialists to present on and discuss the progress and challenges the UK Steel Industry faces in this area.

We’ve rebranded - find out more about the new design!

Steel is one of the world’s most recycled materials, with nearly 40% of steel products on the market containing recycled material and 75% of steel products ever made still in use today. Although producing one tonne of steel today requires just 40% of the energy it did in 1960, the industry must adapt and look at alternative ways to reduce its energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The Discover Materials group recently held an Open Week of events to highlight the importance of Materials Science and Engineering in everyday life, and the variety of career options available in this discipline.

As many countries across the world begin to ease lockdown restrictions following the impact of Covid-19, there are many questions concerning the effect this period of uncertainty will have on global economies. In a recent webinar titled “Economic Outlook for the Global Steel Industry” run by Steel University, Dr Edwin Basson, Director General of the World Steel Association, discussed the current and potential future impacts of this global crisis on the steel industry.