Steel Slag Road Technology
Source: PIB
GS III: Science and Technology
Overview
- News in brief
- About Steel Slag Road Technology
- Surat gets India’s first steel slag road
- Scope for India
News in Brief
- Recently, the Union Minister of State for Steel participated in the industry meet held on 18th July 2023 organized under the ‘One Week One Lab’ program of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).
- He said that the ‘Waste to Wealth’ vision is being realised in large part because of CSIR-CRRI’s Steel Slag Road technology.
About Steel Slag Road Technology
- The SIR created the technology as part of a research initiative in partnership with:
- Ministry of Steel
- The Government of India
- Four major steel manufacturing companies in the country
- ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel
- JSW Steel
- Tata Steel
- Rashtriya Ispat Nigam
- This technique allows:
- The efficient disposal of around 19 million tonnes of steel slag generated in the nation
- The large-scale use of waste steel slag in steel plants
The process
- A steel furnace’s byproduct, slag, is created while the furnace burns at 1,500–1,600 degrees Celsius.
- It is regarded as an impurity and takes the form of molten flux material.
- The molten material is put into slag pits to cool and then goes through a customised process to become stable steel slag aggregates.
The advantages of steel slag roads
- Around 30% less expensive than traditional pavement
- More durable and resistant to erratic weather
Surat gets India’s first steel slag road
- The first road constructed using steel slag road interpretation technology in Surat, Gujarat, has gained national and international recognition for its technological brilliance.
- Its construction at the ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel Hazira facility utilised about 1 lakh tonnes of steel slag aggregate.
- This road was built without the use of any natural ballast of any type.
- A kilometre-long section of the six-lane public road can be found at Hazira Industries, which also has the AM/NS facility.
- Steel slag aggregate was created by turning piles of steel trash onto the building site about a year ago.
- Early in March, the road’s sixth and last lane, which has a three-lane to-and-from carriageway on either side, was finished.
- Heavy-duty trucks from global corporations with locations in the industrial park on the outskirts of Surat are now using the road.
- Every day, more than 30 heavy-loaded vehicles utilise the road.
- To measure load-induced deformation, and stress and strain in the pavement areas, the steel slag road has been constructed using:
- Instrumented test sections
- Comprising strain gauges
- Pressure cells
- Displacement gauges
- Thermocouples
Cost-effective and environmentally friendly
- The use of processed steel slag in road building, according to Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) authorities, paves the door for sustainable waste management and lessens reliance on perishable natural materials.
- This procedure is consistent with India’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 9 for building resilient infrastructure through inclusive and sustainable industrialization and green technologies, which calls for reducing GHG emissions and carbon footprint in road construction activity.
- As a byproduct of the steel industry that is processed and transformed into aggregate material for use in construction, steel slag road doesn’t involve blasting, drilling, or crushing.
- When it comes to how these roads would affect automobiles, experts claimed that the effect on tyres will be minimal.
Scope for India
- The vast amount of steel slag produced as a byproduct of the steel industry in India offers a tremendous opportunity for the nation.
- India is the second-largest producer of steel in the world, and the nation now generates roughly 19 million tonnes of steel slag as solid waste, a number that is expected to rise to 60 million tonnes by the year 2030.
- Huge mounds of steel slag have accumulated around steel mills as a result of the lack of effective disposal procedures, which has led to increased levels of water, air, and land pollution.
- One tonne of steel manufacturing produces around 200 kilogrammes of steel slag.
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