Meet the man behind our award winning steels

What if you could create materials that are as light as bamboo yet incredibly strong to build safer cars and towering cranes? Radhakanta Rana – a born metallurgist, father of a teenage son, and a mission-driven scientist at Tata Steel – has found the secret recipes.

Since childhood, Radhakanta dreamed of becoming a teacher – to shape young minds and make the world a little better. Through guest lectures at Delft University of Technology, mentoring students and leading industry–academia collaborative projects, he has come quite close to fulfilling that dream. But he has also published two highly utilised books on steels, is also Editor-in-Chief of a specialist journal in materials science & engineering and a leading researcher at Tata Steel in IJmuiden.

From Blacksmith Roots to Global Recognition

Radhakanta was recently honoured with the prestigious Gold Medal from the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) – a lifetime achievement award. Though he seemed destined to follow in the footsteps of his forefathers, he didn’t become a blacksmith. Instead, he became the inventor of more sustainable production methods and high-strength, advanced, and ultra-strong steels such as medium manganese steels, ductile press-hardened steels, tempered martensitic structural steels etc.

Large-Scale Impact

Which comes in handy – steel has countless applications. Its formability and weight may not matter much for the foundation of a building, but they’re critical in a car. That’s why we constantly need new recipes and a deep understanding of the microstructural changes occurring during steel manufacturing – and in some cases, even during forming and use by our customers. Radhakanta’s steel grades are meant for large scale use in cars, cranes, and heavy-duty vehicles.

Golden Recipes

Radhakanta’s research focuses on solving one of metallurgy’s greatest puzzles: how to make steels stronger, lighter, ductile and yet more sustainable – all at once. “If you improve one property – like strength, weight or formability – it often comes at the expense of another,” Radhakanta explains. Still, he managed to crack the codes. How? By applying unconventional paths and not being shy to take risks in his research. As an example, he applied an existing alloy idea from automotive to the lifting & excavating world. “The foundation already existed. The innovation lies in the cross-pollination – no one else had done it this way,” he reflects.

Spider Man

In the automotive industry, there is a growing demand for ultra-strong, lightweight, and ductile steel that can be shaped at elevated temperature and still resists surface degradation. Finding that recipe was no easy task – it needed a completely new composition with high manganese to shape at lower temperatures than conventional press-hardened steels to overcome surface degradation. To make the steel more economical, the initial composition needed to be recalibrated with less manganese and more carbon. These efforts led to the development of warm-forming medium manganese steel. In the end, it requires less energy to produce, thanks to the lower temperatures; lighter cars use less fuel, and the steel is highly recyclable. When asked to compare his steels to something familiar, he doesn’t choose a technical metaphor but something closer to nature: bamboo – strong, flexible, and sustainable. Or even a superhero: Spider Man – agile, adaptable, and always serving society!

A Greener World

Today, Radhakanta is focused on optimising a wide range of steel grades designed to be produced using high volumes of recycled scrap – a key step towards circular steelmaking in IJmuiden. These sustainable steels will be used in everyday life of humankind – from home appliances to large outside structures. His efforts in R&D are key to the transition of Tata Steel in IJmuiden to a greener and sustainable steel producer. “In the future, people will live in a greener world – often without realising that the green steels quietly helped make it possible,” he says with a smile.

A glimpse into Radhakanta’s personal photo album shows us some memorable moments of his life. Here: at his high school and university in India receiving mementos in 2023, at our own plant in IJmuiden receiving the Tata Steel Europe InnoVista Awards in 2018 & 2019, with his Brimacombe Medalist Award received from the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), USA in 2023, and with his family and relatives in India and at an cultural event.