OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2012. Ricoh announced the adoption of electric furnace steel sheets (*1) jointly developed with Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Steel) for the structural part of multifunction printers (MFPs) in March 2012. These electric furnace steel comprises 100% recycled steel scraps as raw material, which are normally used for construction materials. This is the first time they have been adopted for office machines. To use these electric furnace steel sheets for MFPs, mechanical properties (surface characteristics, formability, workability, etc.) must conform to those of regular steel sheets from blast furnaces. With this background of pioneering challenges, we talked to people from both companies about how they overcame difficulties and achieved use in MFPs.

*1 Electric furnace steel sheet: Scrap steel is dissolved in an electric furnace and, after quality governing, refining, and casting, is made into slabs. These slabs are rolled and cooled to become a hoop steel (coil). They then go through a secondary process of annealing and coating, and finish as a sheet steel.