Sumitomo Metals’ Renewed Labs to Speed Up R&D Activities

Sumitomo Metal Industries showed its renewed R&D and experimental laboratories in Amagasaki City of Hyogo, Japan to the press on Wednesday. The firm integrated R&D sectors and experimental facilities inside Amagasaki site into the renewed labs to accelerate R&D activities. The new lab will introduce a state-of-the-art ultra-high resolution electron microscope for atomic-level material analysis.

Construction of the new laboratries started in June 2010 and completed in mid October of this year with approximatel 10 billion yen capex. The new R&D lab has five stories above the ground with total floor space at approximately 20,400 square meters. The new experimental lab has four stories on the ground with total floor space at approximately 5,600 square meters.

R&D sectors separated inside Amagasaki site were integrated into the new R&D lab. The new experimental lab, adjacent to the new R&D lab, contains all analysis equipments inside Amagasaki site. Most advanced equipments contribute to multi-level analysis of various phenomenon of metals such as crack or corrosion at micron level, nanometer level and atomic level.

The new lab will introduce a state-of-the-art aberration-corrected transmission electron microscope (TEM) made by U.S. FEI Company, TITAN TMG2 60-300, in March 2012. This TEM can observe behavior of each atom on crystal grain boundary in real time, which is deeply related to strength and corrosive resistance of metals. New material development is expected to speed up such for high grade oil well pipe for which high temperature and high corrosion resistances are required.