90 Years of the Journal “Steel Research International”

Abstract

In 1927 our journal was founded with the title “Archiv für das Eisenhüttenwesen” being the scientific partner of the accompanying journal “Stahl und Eisen”. It became the organ of the German research community that studied steel and related processes. But as science has never been a national issue, contributions from the international community have always been welcomed. Consequently, the language of publication became English and in 1985 the journal was re-named as “steel research“ and eight years later as “steel research international”. Thus, in 2017 we can celebrate 90 years of a unique journal related to a specific materials group. Our journal holds a special position amongst other journals that are mostly dedicated to single scientific disciplines. We focus on promoting a holistic view of the developments and future prospects of iron based alloys, their physical basics, their industrial process technology and their widespread application. On the occasion of the journal's anniversary we invited authors from science and industry to submit papers that highlight important developments in the steel community, not only indicating current developments but also illustrating the historic aspects and estimating the scientific and technological achievements from a superordinate perspective. This issue of “steel research international” invites the reader to follow the success story of steel. The basic concept of the thermomechnical treatment was developed more than 50 years ago; combining a closely controlled rolling process with the new steel concept of microalloyed steels opened the door for new generations of high strength steels for various fields of application. For more than 25 years the new group of Advanced High Strength Steels has been developed constantly and optimized for the very competitive environment of automotive materials; today AHSS are widely accepted as the preferred material for car body applications. Here the specific advantages of multiphase microstructures are exploited. Very attractive properties can be developed in cold formable TRIP steels with a metastable retained austenite fraction; the TRIP effect was already observed in the 1930s (and was described in the “Archiv für das Eisenhüttenwesen”), but the technological use is much younger and to this day new ideas for improved properties are proposed based on metastable austenite. 25 years ago, the idea of a new rolling process combining thin slab casting and hot rolling in one single processing line was born and formed the nucleus for a new technology contributing to economic and ecological savings. It was about the same time when modelling approaches became that successful that the microstructure development over several process steps and on several scales could be described quantitatively, laying the basis foundations for today's Integrated Computational Materials Engineering ICME. This supports the current concept of process and materials description by the digital twin. Finally, the description of nm-size structure features like lath martensite becomes more and more important in modern high strength steels. We will continue to be committed to high scientific standards and to contemporary issues for papers published in this journal. Thus, we will take care that the benefits of scientific methods for the further development of the industry and the utilisation of modern materials become apparent. We look forward to the next decade and the 100th anniversary in 2027.