MOWSES Marks a Strong First Project Year: Advancing the Future of Green Steel in Europe
As 2025 comes to an end, the MOWSES consortium is taking the opportunity to reflect on an intense and productive first year of collaboration. With the project officially launched during the kick-off meeting in Ghent in October 2024, this past year marked the first full cycle of coordinated research activities aimed at accelerating the development of high-quality welded green steels for European sustainable infrastructure.
Since the start partners collaborated intensively across the different work packages, each contributing to the project’s overarching mission: enabling the use of steel made with higher amounts of scrap in demanding welded structures, including those used in renewable energy applications. The first in-person progress meeting, held in Dillingen, allowed partners to review achievements, align upcoming tasks and jointly address the early challenges in material production and testing.
One of the major accomplishments of the year has been the definition and refinement of the steel composition matrix. Through close collaboration between Dillinger, TU Delft, OCAS and others, more than 20 laboratory heats were produced to explore how residual and critical elements influence strength, toughness and microstructure. CALPHAD modelling helped narrow down promising chemical combinations, ensuring a strong scientific basis for the experimental campaigns. Challenges arose in producing steels with low-melting-point elements such as Zn and Bi, leading partners to swap production responsibilities to fulfill the manufacturing of these alloys.
Laboratory hot-rolling and mechanical testing progressed throughout 2025, with COMTES FHT, OCAS and Dillinger analysing tensile properties, fracture toughness and microstructures of the first plates. Meanwhile, TU Delft initiated thermomechanical welding simulations, preparing HAZ studies that will later feed into advanced material models. RWTH Aachen began developing controlled welding procedures and thermal cycle measurements for weldability investigations, laying the groundwork for multi-pass welding trials planned for the next phase.
A core pillar of MOWSES links experimental evidence with state-of-the-art modelling and AI tools. UGent, Saarland University and TU Delft prepared the foundations for advanced microstructure characterisation and micro-mechanical modelling, including an AI-driven approach to identify Local Brittle Zones in the heat-affected zone. The team began developing a new predictive model for fracture in the ductile-to-brittle transition, marking an important start to the project’s digital innovation tasks.
As the MOWSES project moves into its second year, work will intensify across experimental welding trials, AI-based microstructure interpretation and modelling of HAZ toughness. With strong engagement from industry partners and a coordinated scientific approach, MOWSES is well positioned to deliver impactful results for Europe’s transition to clean, circular and high-performance steel.
With renewed energy and a strong collaborative spirit, the consortium has entered its second year ready to push green steel innovation forward and deliver meaningful impact for Europe’s sustainable future.