In-hwan Oh, President of POSCO, said, “We implemented a customer-oriented core research infrastructure to help us evaluate products in a production environment similar to that of customers. By doing this, we aim to develop leading technologies and provide preemptive and proactive solutions to customers.”

The Steel Forming Laboratory will be used exclusively to evaluate the products ordered by POSCO customers by looking at properties such as formability, weldability, coating weight, corrosion resistance, and fatigue life. These evaluations will also be used to provide basic customer support such as quality certification. The new Steel Forming Laboratory will primarily be used for more differentiated tasks such as providing application technology solutions involving steel products.

The Steel Forming Laboratory houses various equipment, including roll forming machines and presses, which are used to evaluate the formability of steel products such as POSCO GIGA STEEL and develop new forming technologies. POSCO is the first steelmaker in Korea to use the 2,000-ton hydraulic press in order to evaluate the formability of large components such as the side outers of automobiles. In addition, other equipment such as the high-speed crash test machine, full-scale fatigue test machine, and wheel durability test machine can evaluate the impact and durability of the molded parts of automobiles. They also provide customized analysis results using 3D scanners.

POSCO’s new Steel Forming Laboratory has various facilities for the evaluation and advancement of large components for customers. Above, a POSCO employee can be seen operating the 2000-ton hydraulic press, the first to be purchased by a domestic steelmaker.

POSCO will use these machines to implement its “POSCO One-Stop Development” system, making it possible to perform every step from developing application technologies for steel products to production verification testing without the involvement of customers, a move towards further reinforcing its Solution Marketing services.

Customers may find it difficult to adopt newly developed steel grades right away, but with POSCO evaluating formability (one of the mandatory criteria for selecting steel products) on behalf of its customers, the burden of selecting new steel grades will be reduced.

POSCO will continue to pursue shared growth by conducting joint research with not only large OEM companies, but also small and medium-sized parts companies that find it relatively more difficult to operate various testing machines.

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POSCO invested a total of KRW 255.4 billion and the 7CGL is expected to have an annual production capacity of 500,000 tons. By designing and constructing the plant with its own proprietary technology, POSCO was able to reduce construction costs, thereby securing cost competitiveness for its customers as well.

POSCO CEO Ohjoon Kwon and executives came together on April 26 to officially bring 7CGL online. From left to right: Seong Yu, head of the Technology and Investment Division; Shohei Yamazaki, purchasing organizing director of Renault-Nissan; Kiyoshi Kamishima, general manager of the Materials & Facilities Purchasing Division of Toyota; Jae-cheon Song, chairman of the Gwangyang City Council; In-hwa Jeong, a national assembly member; CEO Kwon; Nak-yeon Lee, governor of Jeollanam-do; Hyun-bok Jeong, mayor of Gwangyang; and Myeong-jin Seo, executive director of Hyundai & Kia.

CEO Kwon remarked, “POSCO opens up a new horizon in automotive steel with the completion of the 7CGL. This new line will allow POSCO to continue to provide differentiated products and customized solutions through smart technology.”

The 7CGL is attracting attention as one of the first plants to produce both hot-dip galvannealed (GA) and hot-dip galvanized steel (GI) at 1.5GPa  steel for automobiles. GA steel is preferred by Korean and Japanese automakers because it has excellent coatability and weldability as the coating layer is made of iron and zinc alloy, while GI steel is preferred by European automakers due to its excellent resistance to corrosion.

Previously, GA and GI steel sheets could only be produced at 1.2GPa due to surface and quality problems that occur before and after plating. POSCO resolved these problems by developing the “high hydrogen rapid cooling technology,” which forms high-intensity tissues in steel sheets before plating, and a “rapid cooling system,” which uses rapid cooling to smooth out the plated surface.

With the completion of 7CGL, POSCO now has seven operating CGLs  in Gwangyang, two CGLs in Mexico, and five CGLs in Thailand, India, and China. Through these CGLs, POSCO plans to produce 10 million tons of steel by 2018 and further solidify its status as a global automotive steel maker.

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