Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Buergler
K1-MET/voestalpine, Austria

Thomas Buergler is Managing Director of the Competence Center K1-MET for Metallurgical and Environmental Process Development, Senior Expert of voestalpine Steel Divison for climate-neutral steelmaking and Board Member of the Hydrogen Flagship Region Austria.
Graduated in Metallurgy at the University in Leoben, his more than 30 years of professional experience as project and research manager includes the development of classic and alternative process routes in steelmaking, direct and smelting reduction. He has also extensive expertise in the processing of raw materials and recycling of steelmaking by-products.
He was member of the Technical and Steering Committee of ULCOS, the European cooperative R&D initiative to enable reduction in CO₂ emissions from steel production and involved in the technological development of increased hydrogen use in the DR process, a key technology for sustainable steelmaking.
Latest projects are the hydrogen production with PEM technology, the transformation BF/BOF to DR/SAF/EAF steelmaking and the development of hydrogen based direct and smelting reduction processes for ultrafine iron ores. Sector coupling with CO₂ as a source for the carbon cycle will become important for the future.
He is also Lector for Process Technology at the University of Leoben and Materials Science at the Technical College in Linz.

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The refractory industry has been using thermal shock principles for many decades, although most of the time empirically. Therefore, the producers and end-users do not need motivation on the subject, though we all need its fundamentals. The main objective of the course is to provide the first principles, to help the microstructure design of refractories, to improve their thermal shock resistance and selection.

09.00am - 10:30am >> Fundamentals and the efforts along the time to establish parameters that could model the thermal shock behavior
10.30am - 11.00am >> Coffee Break
11.00am - 01.00pm >> Continuation of the previous topic and how toughening mechanisms are embedded in these concepts
01.00pm - 02.00pm >> Lunch
02.00pm - 03.30pm >> Examples of how to generate a range of engineered microstructures to improve the thermal shock resistance of refractory materials
03.30pm - 04.00pm >> Coffee Break
04.00pm - 05.00pm >> Continuation of the previous topic
05.00pm >> Final Discussion

Prof. Dr. Victor Carlos Pandolfelli
Federal University São Carlos, Brazil

Victor Carlos Pandolfelli is Full Professor at the Materials Engineering Department, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil, from which he received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in ceramics. He earned his Ph.D. from Leeds University (England) and spent a year as visiting researcher at École Polytechnique in Montreal (Canada). He has authored or co-authored 584 papers in journals (including book chapters), over 279 in proceedings, 2 books (one of them international with 752 pages, published by Göller Verlag - Germany) and holds 8 patents. During his career, received 114 awards and distinctions for his scientific and technological achievements. Since 2004 he is the Latin-American coordinator of FIRE (Federation for International Refractories Research and Education) involving 10 universities in different countries and 13 key refractory industries in the world. Pandolfelli is also Full Member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, Full Member of World Academy of Ceramics, Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, Honorary Fellow of the European Ceramic Society, Guest Professor of Wuhan University of Science and Technology - China (2013-2017), Visiting Professor of Freiberg University of Mining and Technology - Germany (2017-2018), Mercator Professor of Freiberg University of Mining and Technology (since 2019), Full Member of the National Academy of Engineering, Member of the Advisory Board of the World Academy of Ceramics (2014-2018 and reconducted for the 2018-2024 term), Member of the Technical Advisory Board of Morgan International (England) (2014- 2019), member of the International Technical Advisory Committee da RHI-Magnesita (Austria), Associate Editor of Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Editor-in-Chief of Ceramics International and member of the Editorial Board of other 9 journals. He is also recipient of the Theodore J. Planje Award, the highest recognition of the American Ceramic Society for a refractory researcher. Pandolfelli also supervised all together 92 MSc and PhD works.

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As a rough estimate, the fatigue strength of engineering alloys correlates with the strength values (UTS) from the tensile test. Accordingly, the well-known strengthening mechanisms, grain refining, dislocation, precipitation and solid solution hardening, can be used to improve the fatigue behavior. However, with decreasing strain amplitude the influence of microstructural stress raisers, such as pores, non-metallic inclusions or highly-misoriented grains, becomes predominant in determining the fatigue limit. In addition, local accumulation of irreversible dislocation motion leads to microstructure changes, e.g. fine granular areas (FGA), and in consequence, to a gradual change in the resistance to fatigue crack initiation.
The pre-conference course outlines the significance of fatigue damage mechanisms for the longevity of modern steel products in the context of a circular economy. It will provide the basic knowledge of the most relevant fatigue damage states: cyclic plasticity, fatigue crack initiation and fatigue crack propagation, including the methods of cyclic testing and fracture mechanics testing of fatigue crack propagation. For the example of high and very high cycle fatigue (HCF/VHCF) of martensitic/bainitic steel, austenitic stainless steel and duplex steel grades, the relationship between microstructure features and the fatigue resistance are shown by means of high-frequency fatigue testing, electron microscopy and short crack modeling. Eventually, the concepts are illustrated by case studies on examples from mobility and mechanical engineering.

09.00am - 10:30am >> Longevity of Steel Products in the Context of Circular Economy / Cyclic Deformation and Fatigue Cracks – The Basics and Experimental Testing
10.30am - 11.00am >> Coffee Break
11.00am - 01.00pm >> The Fatigue Limit and Crack Initiation – The Influence of Microstructure and Cleanliness
01.00pm - 02.00pm >> Lunch
02.00pm - 03.30pm >> Fatigue Crack Propagation / Case Study: Fatigue Life Assessment

Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Ulrich Krupp
RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Krupp, head of Steel Institute IEHK at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, graduated in mechanical engineering and obtained his doctorate degree in materials engineering in 1998 at Universiyt of Siegen, Germany. After a post doc period in 2001/2002 at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, he joined Osnabrück University of Appied Sciences, Germany, as full professor in 2006. His research topics include, (i) design of metallic materials used in mechanical and power engineering and mobility, (ii) metal fatigue with a focus on micro crack propagation, and (iii) powder metallurgy and laser-based additive manufacturing of metals. To date, he has published more than 370 research papers, was awarded the Masing Award of DGM in 2005, the Galileo Award of DVM, VDEh and DGM in 2011 and the VDI Honorary Medal in 2017. Since 2015, he is also affilated professor at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.