Cleaner steel by Ovako helps eliminate fatigue failures and extends service life for improved product design
High performance components are currently expected to withstand higher loads over longer periods of time. The purity of clean steels by Ovako is further developed to eliminate fatigue failures and extend service life to meet these high strength demands.
IQ-Steel® has minimized the size of inclusions which dramatically increases its fatigue strength in all directions, while BQ-Steel® is the more traditional choice for improved fatigue strength in demanding applications. Both groups of materials can help customers in many other industries to achieve lighter, stronger, more efficient and compact component designs.
IQ-Steel (Isotropic Quality) is a family of isotropic, ultra clean steels with properties that match remelted steel. The pure and highly consistent quality of the steel is achieved without the complex remelting processes that add considerably towards energy consumption and material price. IQ-Steel can upgrade the performance of gears, camshafts or safety-critical components that are subjected to high, complex and cyclic loading.
For high stresses in less complex load cases, well-proven high performance is available from the BQ-Steel family (Bearing Quality). Supplied for 100 years to high-quality bearing manufacturers, the steels have significantly smaller inclusions than conventional steels, which increases fatigue strength and creates new design possibilities in many high-stress applications. IQ-Steel represents the next level of performance.
IQ-Steel is designed so that inclusions remain below a critical size. The resulting isotropic properties give two or three times the fatigue performance of conventional steel grades. Its strong performance in all directions makes the steel family suitable for complex loading cases and opens possibilities for new designs.
“Some of the world’s most quality-oriented original equipment manufacturers are already using our IQ-Steel and BQ-Steel grades in order to handle the strain of higher and more complex loads. We see great opportunities in expanding this scope for industries that are facing new design requirements and need lighter, stronger solutions,” said Göran Nyström, Executive Vice President at Ovako.
IQ-Steel and BQ-Steel belong to the series of attribute brands being launched by Ovako, all of which are designed to offer advantages including increased service life and safety, improved productivity and new design solutions. For more information on Ovako’s new brand launches go to ovako.com/rightsteel
Further information can be obtained from:
Bengt Larsson, Head of Group Marketing Communications, +46 70 084 45 07
Viktoria Karsberg, Head of Group Communications, +46 70 209 93 96
Ovako is a leading European producer of engineering steel for customers in the bearing, transportation and manufacturing industries. Our production is based on recycled steel and includes steel in the form of bars, tubes, rings and pre-components. Ovako is represented in more than 30 countries and has sales offices in Europe, North America and Asia. Sales in 2014 amounted to EUR 862 million and the company had 2,925 employees at year-end. For further information please visit us at www.ovako.com
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