Image courtesy AK Steel
AK Steel Corporation, working in partnership with Regal Beloit Corporation and DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has created a new steel alloy that promises a significant decrease in energy losses in electric motors and power generators, resulting in a marked improvement in their efficiency. In this ongoing project with the Advanced Manufacturing Office, AK Steel and its partners have created a new steel alloy containing silicon (Si), aluminum (Al), chromium (Cr), and manganese (Mn) that results in the desired soft magnetic properties of high-silicon steel but without the resulting brittleness and degradation of mechanical properties. As a result, core losses can be reduced by ~37%, resulting in a 2 to 3% increase in efficiency. If brought to commercial-scale application, this could save significant amounts of energy in the American industrial sector. The alloy has already been created and presently, industrial-scale trial manufacturing testing is underway.