Agueda Garnica Luna – 2022 Steel Intern Scholar
During a period of almost 2 months, I was doing my summer stay at TERNIUM Mexico, in Monterrey, Mich., Mexico. TERNIUM is a steel company with plants distributed throughout Mexico that satisfies the steel process from the extraction of ore until rolled steel rolls are obtained that are destined for purposes such as automotive or white goods.
I was in the coating operations department at the Juventud plant, under the direction of Robert Freites, president of AIST Mexico, and in charge of my tutor Alejandro Aranda, where I developed a project in jointly with Aranda and my co-tutors Carlos De la Garza and Sergio Cerda, which the project aimed to reduce the waste of material in the production line of Galvanized 1 of Juventud, which is a continuous hot-dip galvanizing line. Hot-dip galvanizing is the process of immersing iron or steel in a bath of molten zinc to produce a corrosion resistant, multi-layered coating of zinc-iron alloy and zinc metal.
When I arrived at Juventud I was able to learn more about the galvanizing process and all the variables involved in carrying out this process. This process can be summarized in eight steps: prepare and clean the strip, anneal, apply the coating, wipe off excess coating, cool the strip, tension level or temper roll, apply surface treatment and recoil.I am very happy and satisfied with my experience this summer. It helped me to strengthen skills that I had and to develop skills in the labor field, in addition to applying my knowledge that from an educational standpoint, with ideas for innovation and improvement.
I am very grateful to TERNIUM Mexico and AIST for this valuable opportunity. I also thank my tutor and co-tutors for sharing some of their knowledge with me.