Ostrava’s lab has a new team and a new state-of-the art Microprobe

Recently, the LIBERTY Ostrava Metallography department has gone through a successful generational change and an upgrade thanks to some new sophisticated equipment.

The new team members are Maria Nowak, a fresh graduate from VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava where she studied material engineering, while Radana Haladejová is also a graduate of the university but joins the team as a highly experienced professional from within the steel industry. They have replaced two very experienced experts, Petr Chovančík and Václav Rábl, who have headed off to a well-deserved retirement. Together with Jan Moravec, the other member of Ostrava’s Structural Analyses team, Mária and Radana will now get to use the company’s new state-of-the-art Microprobe.

The Microprobe is an electron scanning microscope with energy dispersive spectrometer, which allows the team to check the chemical composition of impurities in steel down to atomic level. The probe is equipped with highly advanced software that is able to create special diagrams, chemical maps and automatically evaluate steel purity to ensure it is aligned with Czech (ČSN) and German (DIN) technical standards. The probe will help them clarify the causes of unwanted defects during steel casting or at Ostrava’s casters and finishing lines so that they can continuously improve their production processes. The new microprobe, which is able to analyse larger samples as well as several at the same time, will significantly also improve the team’s ability to maintain, monitor and improve the quality of Ostrava’s products and its customers’ ability to justify their product certification.

“I would like to thank the management of the company, the members of R&D and investment team and everyone who supported us in this project and helped us implement it. With this very sophisticated spectrometer and our new team we can not only provide effective support to our colleagues in production today but also our green steel production future.”

Luboš Heinc, Head of LIBERTY Ostrava’s Test Room