Stronger steels make roads safer
Every day, cars collide with lighting poles on our roads. Even at low speeds, the impact can cause severe injuries and extensive damage to the vehicle.
A major manufacturer of street lighting poles recently called on the services of ArcelorMittal’s co-engineering team to develop a new energy absorbing solution.
ArcelorMittal’s engineers identified that one of our many advanced high strength steels (DP600) could effectively absorb the energy of a crash. By creating lighting poles with this advanced high strength steel, the number of fatal accidents is reduced dramatically.
The new design combines higher safety with multiple additional advantages including:
- Weight reduction: Steel thickness can be reduced by half to 2 mm which reduces pole weight from 200 kg to just 100 kg.
- Cost reduction: 50% less steel is required. Pre-coating the steel instead of using post galvanisation also adds to cost savings.
- Reduction in carbon footprint: 50% less steel needs to be produced and transported to the site.
- Greener product: Coating thickness is reduced from 200 to 25 µm and the coating does not contain lead or nickel.
- Improved corrosion resistance: Magnelis® has better adherence to the steel compared to post-galvanisation.
- Quality certification: The CE-certification label was obtained in March 2012.
