Our movement and the transportation of products are made easier by steel. Steel is vital to every method of transportation, whether it is in the shape of bicycles, motorbikes, automobiles, buses, trains, ships, or planes, steel is essential to every transportation mode.
Steel rebar supports the structure of continuously reinforced concrete roads, which helps to increase the efficiency of fuel for big vehicles. Steel is ideal for transportation applications since it is long-lasting, robust, lightweight, UV-resistant, cost-effective, and recyclable.
Improvements in the design of high-strength steel have also played a key role to enhance the efficiency of many of these transport modes whilst considerably reducing life cycle greenhouse gas emissions. The largest steel producers in India focus on their supply to four major applications making it an ideal choice for transportation industry.
How steel is used in transport
Around 16% of all steel produced globally is utilized to fulfill general societal transportation demands, including automobiles. Steel is also necessary for supporting infrastructure such as highways, bridges, ports, stations, airports, and filling stations.
The following are some of the most important applications of steel:
For ships and shipping containers
Ship hulls have historically been made out of tensile steel plates. Modern steel plates have significantly higher tensile strengths than they had earlier, making them ideal for building big cargo ships. A special type of plate with built-in corrosion resistance is a vital part in the construction of oil tankers.
The use of steel in transportation construction simplifies the moving of considerably light vessels or larger-capacity vessels of the same weight, providing the considerable potential to reduce fuel use and hence CO2 emissions. Around 90% of the world's cargo is transported by steel ships. The global container fleet consists of an estimated 17 million vessels of various kinds, the bulk of which are constructed of steel.
For trains and rail cars
Steel is required for rail transportation, both in the trains and in the rail's infrastructure. Rail, as compared to virtually all other modes of transportation, reduces transit times and CO2 emissions per passenger kilometer for short and medium-distance travels.
Steel accounts for 15% of the bulk of high-speed trains and is critical to their operation. Bogies are the trains' major steel components, which include wheels, axles, bearings, and motors (the structure underneath the train). Steel is nearly exclusively used in freight and commercial vehicles.
For airplanes
The engines and landing gear in an airplane are made of steel. Metals are chosen by the aviation sector depending on a few characteristics like hardness, strength, density, malleability ductility, elasticity, brittleness, conductivity, and thermal expansion. Stainless steel may be utilized for nearly any part of an airplane, according to a report by the Federal Aviation Administration. Spring, castings, tie rods, control cables, structural, and machined components are all common applications of steel. Even the engines and landing gear are made of steel.
For Transportation Infrastructure
Steel is utilized in the construction of filling stations, railway stations, ports, and airports, as well as bridges, tunnels, and rail tracks. Rebar makes up around 60% of all steel used in infrastructure.
Steel was almost certainly used in the construction of nearly any large-scale infrastructure project. The steel used to build infrastructures come from the largest steel producers in India, from huge and small bridges to train stations, tunnels, airports, and parking lots. It's a flexible and long-lasting material that offers cost-effective and long-term solutions to the exclusive technical problems that these projects face.