BRILLIANT MIND BRILLIANT SOLUTIONS

摘要

Dr. Gerald Hohenbichler, with an academic education in physics and engineering, is arguably the most prolific inventor at Primetals Technologies. He has spearheaded a myriad of groundbreaking technological novelties and was honored as "Inventor of the Year" at Siemens in 2008. In this insightful interview with Dr. Thomas Widter, Deputy Managing Editor of Metals Magazine, Hohenbichler partially reveals the source of his creativity and hints at why he ha.s a positive outlook for. the future of the steel industry. I was told that you have fathered or co-fathered some 300 patents and have submitted over 50 first patent applications at Primetals Technologies and its predecessor companies. What, in your opinion, was the most economically successful innovation for the company and which one are you most proud of? Dr. Gerald Hohenbichler: My most successful innovations are the ones contributing to the various endless casting and rolling technologies, from twin-roll strip casting, to Arvedi ESP, up to WinLink. Here, the great achievement was finding the right core processes and components that would allow an endless production process to become a reality. The key problems were related to quality stability de-bottlenecking and ensuring uninterrupted availability of the plant. In fully endless production, if any given element in the production chain fails, it stops the entire line. So we had to ensure 100% process robustness and reliable operation. Five Arvedi ESP lines were ordered by Rizhao Steel in China, and recently we were awarded a WinLink plant project by GPH [GPH Ispat Ltd.] in Bangladesh.