New laboratory tests have been developed to characterise thecoke behaviour at high temperature under conditions similar tothose encountered in the blast furnace, especially in terms ofgasification degree. The validity of these new tests has been demonstrated by comparisonwith the modifications undergone by coke in the blast furnace.The latter have been determined by comparing cokes sampledby a tuyere probe with cokes sampled before charging. The results showed only little correlation with the classical coke characterisation indices (I10, I40, CSR), which indicates that they really bring new information on coke properties.

Existing rolling mills entering the markets for high quality steel may be limited by their descaling systems installed in terms of pressure and flow rate. In addition to the potential for optimizations of existing systems, the potential for optimization of the nozzle design itself has now been fully utilized in order to maximize the impact at a given water flow and pressure. New design methods and production technologies have been applied.

A rolling force model of continuous cold rolling mill based on elastic and plastic mechanics was developed and successfully applied in the control system of a 1420 mm cold rolling mill in Baosteel. Considering simplicity and practicability of calculation, stress of elastic zone and plastic zone during the cold rolling process was calculated and analyzed by incorporated simple finite element method and recursive calculating method. Compared with the measured rolling force, the results of the rolling force model are beyond 96.5%. A method for optimizing rolling force by improving reduction, dimension, coefficient of friction, deformation and tension is put forward.

The links between defect occurrence and process parametershave been identified on the basis of the recorded defectposition and severity level. The results of detailed analysisreveal the competition between oxidation and reductionphenomena and the effect of strip surface after pickling onstrip oxidation. Industrial trials have validated the effect ofthe effective process parameters on the coating quality.

The original viscoplastic framework at low homologoustemperature is based on the coupling of the E. Rauch'soriginal approach for mixing athermal and viscous termin the flow stress of ferritic steels, a general viscoplasticpotential and a microstructure based quasi-static behaviorlaw. The formalism gives accurate results in excellentagreement with available experimental results with only twoadjusted parameters, over a wide range of strain rates andtemperatures.

A new grade of the 200 series has been defined for theEuropean market as a candidate alternative to austeniticgrade EN 1.4301 (AISI 304). The grade was recentlyassigned a material number by VDEh (1.4618 - X9CrMnNiCu17-8-5-2). The paper presents mechanical properties ofthe grade including drawability and corrosion resistancecharacteristics. The newly designed grade has mechanicalproperties slightly superior to those of EN 1.4301 (AISI304) and equivalent to those of EN 1.4310 (AISI 301)grade. In terms of corrosion resistance, the grade is closeto that of grade EN 1.4301 (AISI 304), upgrading theclassical 200 series.