Tuesday, 11 March 2025 |
7 a.m. | Breakfast and Registration |
8 a.m. | Overview of the Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel and History of the Industry
The first session provides an overview of the technologies used to produce steel today and the evolution of world steel production. The general chemistry of steel is introduced to help illuminate the principles of iron- and steelmaking. This session ends with a brief history of metals production and an introduction to early iron- and steelmaking processes. |
9 a.m. | Break |
9:15 a.m. | Ironmaking and Steelmaking
This session explains the techniques used to produce iron and steel from raw materials, including ores and recycled materials. Processes reviewed include the blast furnace, direct reduction, ferrous scrap production, basic oxygen steelmaking and electric furnace steelmaking. Important gas, slag and metal reactions will be explained, as well as the impacts of the processes on energy and the environment. The effects of the different processing techniques will be explained, and future iron- and steelmaking developments will be explored. |
10:45 a.m. | Break |
11 a.m. | Secondary Metallurgy
Basic, acid, and neutral slags and refractories will be introduced, along with reasons for using each. The interaction of refractories and slags with metal will be explored, including methods of reducing refractory wear and quality improvements. The use of ladle metallurgy treatment and furnaces will be explained. The principles behind other secondary steelmaking techniques will be explained, including degassers and argon oxygen decarburization steelmaking for the production of high-quality steels such as ultralow-carbon and stainless steels. Inclusion formation, modification and removal will be discussed. |
Noon | Lunch and Plant Tour of Nucor Steel Brandenburg |
5–6 p.m. | Reception |
Tuesday, 11 March 2025 |
7 a.m. | Breakfast |
8 a.m. | Solidification Fundamentals and Batch Casting
The importance of solidification on final product quality will be discussed. The effects of tundish and mold metallurgy on product quality will be explained, along with casting defect causes and methods of prevention. |
8:45 a.m. | Break |
9 a.m. | Continuous Casting of Steel
The history and evolution of continuous casting processes from billets, blooms, and slabs to near-net-shape processes for thin slabs, strip, beam blanks and wire will be reviewed. |
10 a.m. | Break |
10:15 a.m. | The Physical Metallurgy of Steel
This session introduces physical metallurgy, the branch of metallurgy concerned with connecting steel properties to its chemical composition and processing. The basic features of a steel’s crystal structure and microstructure will be covered, as well as how these structures are modified by alloying elements and thermomechanical processing (deformation and heating). |
11 a.m. | Property Testing and Material Specification
This session will discuss broad categories of steels and how these categories contain different grades, or standard types. It will introduce some of the grade naming schemes commonly encountered in industry. Different grades of steel have different properties, and this session will describe these properties and the test methods used to measure them. The session will also review examples of material specifications, documents that list standard requirements for different grades of steel. |
Noon | Lunch |
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1 p.m. | Long Products — Wire, Rod, Rebar, Structural
This session will provide an overview of production processes for wire, rod, rebar and structural shapes. Important process steps and selected product quality objectives will be highlighted. |
2:30 p.m. | Hot Rolling of Flat Products
A definition of hot rolling and relevant hot mill terminology will be presented. An overview will be provided on the important quality characteristics for hot-rolled sheet and plate, followed by a walk through the sequence of process steps to produce hot-rolled coiled sheet and plate products. |
3 p.m. | Break |
3:15 p.m. | Pickling, Cold Rolling, Annealing and Temper Rolling of Flat Products
An overview of pickling, cold rolling and annealing operations for sheet products will be presented. The rationale for differences in cold rolling mill equipment configurations to achieve different product objectives will be discussed. Objectives for temper rolling will be covered along with an overview of the temper rolling process. |
4 p.m. | Flat Products Process Lines
The concept of entry section/process section/exit section in process line configurations will be introduced. An overview of typical process section operations — such as pickling, annealing and galvanizing — and their effects on product characteristics will be given. |
5 p.m. | Conference Adjourn |
