Background
Tata Steel’s whole business is geared towards understanding its customers’ needs. The company offers a range of different services backed up by world-class research and development facilities, a customercentric new product development process, a knowledgeable account management team staffed with experts on individual market sectors and a range of customer technical services engineers who proactively help customers improve everything from the efficiency of their manufacturing lines to the performance of the end product in use.
Challenge
Tata Steel are looking for innovative rigid materials for use in steel-faced composite panels with excellent insulation, physical and fire properties, and that can be recycled or reused at the end of its life and potential solutions must meet the following success criteria:
- Clear evidence that the approach taken will result in improved properties compared with current state of the art materials.
- Although it is not necessary that initial prototypes exceed the properties of the current systems, a path to product improvement must be evident.
The construction industry uses every year millions of square metres of steel-faced Polyurethane (PUR) and Polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam filled composite panels as wall and roof panels in a wide range of building constructions. Their primary function is to provide insulation to buildings and hence minimise heating costs and the carbon footprint of the building in-use. Excellent insulation properties are therefore key but the physical properties of the foam are also vital, to enable long panels to be produced and used, and fire properties are equally as important. Whilst other materials are currently available, these can be heavy, expensive or have potential health issues so Tata Steel Europe, as a responsible and ethical manufacturer, is looking to develop a next generation of insulation products.
What's in it for you?
All technological approaches will be considered that meet the required key success criteria. However, concepts or ideas with no experimental support, funding requests for proof of concept will not be accepted.
Approaches based on completely new chemistries or materials will be considered, although a preference would be that they lend themselves to our current production technologies without major modification. Information on Tata Steel's current production process and typical properties of steel faced composite panels can be found here .
A successful collaboration could mean joint development, contract research, technology acquisition and a supply agreement (to be negotiated).
This is a global challenge and Tata Steel are willing to collaborate with both individuals/freelancers and other industry participants/universities etc. and solutions can be at any stage of development, from concept to market-ready.
If you have or are developing solutions, or if you have expertise in the above, please click "Apply" to submit your solution/expertise to the Network.