Programme nominated for the Excellence in Life Cycle Assessment Steelie Award 2023
Baotou Steel has implemented LCA to investigate the environmental performance of ordinary wear-resistant steel and rare earth wear-resistant steel. The eco-design research has been carried out together with manufacturing enterprises of mine vehicles. It found that the wear resistance of rare earth wear-resistant steel (BTNM450) is improved by 26.4% compared with ordinary wear-resistant steel through inspecting of manufactured rare earth wear-resistant steel. The product performances are improved, and the service life is significantly prolonged.
The improvement of wear-resistant properties helped to lightweight the mine car bucket with the rare earth wear-resistant steel. Take the large mine car as an example; the weight of the mine car bucket with rare earth wear-resistant steel is 20% (about 9 t.) lighter than that of a mine car bucket with ordinary wear-resistant steel, which could reduce about 34.2 L. fuel consumption per 100 kilometres and the energy consumption and costs for the users could be significantly reduced as well.
The excellent performance and low-carbon properties of rare earth wear-resistant steel increased their sales enormously. From June to July of 2023, their sales have already reached 7,000 tonnes, which is 2,000 tonnes more than the annual sales of 2022. This steel product also benefited the mine vehicle enterprise and reduced their cost by RMB 3.52416 million yuan.