As a result of their enduring strategic partnership Tata Steel and Swansea University have set up a number of research facilities and centres of excellence including:
Tata Steel is part of the SUSTAIN Future Manufacturing Research Hub, a seven-year research programme which aims to create greener, cleaner, smarter steel by implementing carbon neutral, resource-efficient steel supply chains and resilient solutions for transport, energy and building. Tata Steel is working with Swansea University and other academic and industry partners to:
- reduce the net carbon usage and energy required throughout the steelmaking process
- produce new products or improve the efficiency and consistency of existing high value steels
- capture and utilise the Carbon Dioxide (and manage other harmful emissions) produced in the steel making process
Tata Steel and Swansea University have founded the Steel and Metals Institute (SAMI), a new steel centre of excellence and one of the most advanced testing sites anywhere in the world.
Tata Steel has signed a long-term collaboration contract, committing annual funding towards the running of the Institute, with the University providing research and innovation services to the company and academics working alongside Tata experts.
Tata has also donated a wide range of research equipment to the University and is providing 45 industry Research & Development staff to work alongside 20 new University research staff.
Building on the success of Swansea University’s Steel and Metals Institute and the industrial capabilities at Tata’s Port Talbot steel works, the Steel Science project (a partnership between Tata Steel and Swansea University) will create a new regional centre of excellence, the National Steel Innovation Centre (NSIC), in Neath Port Talbot.
Featuring a range of world class research, testing and simulation facilities, the NSIC will provide an open access facility for the steel and metal supply chain in order to enable a seamless exchange of knowledge between industry and academia and address the challenges of sustaining primary steel-making capacity in the region.
Tata Steel along with Swansea University and WMG, based at the University of Warwick, have joined together to form the Rapid Alloy Prototyping Prosperity Partnership, funded by the EPSRC.
Globally, the development of new steel alloys and coatings is a very slow and iterative process, involving significant business risk and expensive trials, so the prosperity partnership is working to identify and achieve key technical challenges to accelerate the innovation cycle for the steel industry.
Utilising a high throughput approach to trials, where substantial numbers of small-scale samples are generated, analysed and tested, the partnership is aiming to upscale, commercialise and implement new steel alloys and products more quickly (up to 100 times faster).