British Steel explores AI to enhance rail products
The firm will explore if artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify imperfections faster during manufacturing.
British Steel, the only UK manufacturer of rail, currently takes 4,000 photographs of each length of rail during the rolling process.
The images – taken at temperatures of 950°C – are studied in detail to find any potential imperfections.
An imperfection causes a pause while the issue is resolved, and the affected rails quarantined.
To reduce the time in this process, the company is working in partnership with the School of Engineering at the University of Leicester, as part of SUSTAIN and IGNITE projects, to see if AI can enhance the process.
The project is reportedly in the early stages.
Dr Andy Trowsdale, British Steel Technical Director, says, ‘Our rails are world class, meeting the strictest of standards…As we take millions of photos of our rails each year, we want to explore if AI can reliably identify imperfections quicker than our current systems. If it can, it would enhance manufacturing performance, improve product quality and service delivery, and reduce rejection costs.’
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