Although suppliers often introduce new types of sensors, Armco needed to develop its own sensors. Instead, they focus on new products for carbon-steel producers. Armco also is trying to improve models for steelmaking processes. The models, based on empirical data from Armco's melt-shop operations and fundamental principles, predict variables such as the temperature of steel as it travels through the melt shop. Among Armco's environmental projects, the biggest recent development is patented processes to reduce or eliminate the use of nitric acid in pickling stainless, Sussman says.
Nitric acid can be an environmental hazard in water systems and as NOx in air emissions.
Steelmakers use nitric acid for pickling stainless because it's harder to clean than carbon steel, Sussman explains. But at a pickling line at Armco's Mansfield, Ohio, facility, operators now are using alternative acids and sometimes even bases, which in some cases also can provide good-quality pickling. The steelmaker now is developing the process for other pickling lines. Armco's operating units, not the corporate headquarters, provide almost all the funding for the Technical Center. The bulk of the funding is for short-term projects that are expected to reach fruition in one to two years, Sussman says.