Tata Steel Port Talbot, Specifics, South Wales Metallurgical Society

A two day visit, incorporating a lecture at Swansea University, organised by the South Wales Metallurgical Society, a visit to Specifics, and then to Tata Steel Port Talbot. The participants from Cambridge included David Bombac, Hala Salman Hasan, Hector Pous, Guo Lei, Harry Bhadeshia. Some of the photographs were taken by Hala Salman Hasan.

Michael Steinhorst and Jon King of Tata Steel visit Harry in Cambridge	Micheal is based in Holland, and Jon at Warwick University
Looking at the "Tata Chair"	Harry getting ready to present his lecture at the South Wales Metallurgical Society
	The attendance building up
David Bombac, Hala Salman Hasan, Hector Pous and Guo Lei in the audience	David Bombac, Hala Salman Hasan, Hector Pous and Guo Lei in the audience
	Introduction
	Paul Davies of Tata Steel Port Talbot brought along samples of superbainitic armour for Harry's lecture
	We subsequently carried these back to Cambridge
Early morning on the next day at Swansea	Visited "Specifics" which is a new venture by Tata Steel, dealing with functional coatings
Here a system to purify water based on titanium oxide coating on steel. Specifics focuses on technologies that can be scaled up to very large dimensions at reasonable cost
The process for creating the titanium oxide with large surface area per unit volume	Cheap photovoltaics based on dyes
	A heating panel based on a resistive coating on steel
Building material	Illustrates a technology being developed where a natural enzyme found in mould, creates a hydrophobic surface (water off a ducks back)
	Typical seasonal fluctuations in gas and electricity demand. Strong motivation for power storage systems.
	The green footprint.
Thermogravimetric equipment at Specifics	Thermogravimetric equipment
Thermogravimetric equipment	Some coffe at Specifics, before visiting their pilot plant
	Later we went to visit Tata Steel Port Talbot, a major steel plant. Here kitting up with safety equipment
One of the blast furnaces
	The ingredients that typically go into blast furnaces. Ore.
The ingredients that typically go into blast furnaces
The ingredients that typically go into blast furnaces. Coke.
	The structure of coke
David Bombac	In the control room

	The continuous annealing line, illustrating a beautiful accumulator, which can feed steel strip for about two minutes to allow other coils to be attached.
The continuous annealing line	A body in white.