2023 Steel Intern Scholarship – Willy Korf
Jorge Tapia Juarez
This summer I was an intern at Ternium México Universidad Plant in San Nicolás de los Garza, N.L., Mexico. To start with an experience at Ternium, new employees must attend some meetings about safety, Ternium is known by giving certainty to people that they will be at home after working, it’s where I learned that we are not safe only wearing a personal protective equipment (PPE), it’s so important to follow rules and specifications to do our own work and teamwork.
My main project during my internship was to adjust the variable that involves the gas wiping system such as height and distance between baffle air knives and baffle steel strip respectively. Variables should be adjusted because some problems can arise in the galvanizing process such as accumulation of zinc, edge over coating and build-up occasioned by both phenomenon of impingement pressure and shear stress profiles on the steel strip edge. The baffles help keep the impingement pressure and enhance the gas wiping process but if they are not right adjusted to suitable distances, using baffles result ineffective, thus, in order to enhance both productivity and uniformity of the hot-dip galvanized product coating thickness, a control system is always integrated into the process. First, we had to know about airflow behavior, the project was called “G4 baffle operating dynamics.” It was a study of the baffles used in hot-dip galvanizing was undertaken. In this project I developed new skills as an engineer and the skills I already had improved drastically.
To solve the project, it was necessary to study the plant and external backgrounds, researching and obtaining information. Once I had a clear knowledge of what was happening, I went to the plant floor to be able to speak with operators and engineers. At this moment I had the opportunity to learn what their expectations were. Being on the plant floor I was able to understand and identify the galvanizing process, especially the zinc pot and gas wiping system.
Some operational practices were carried out to modify these variables, we approached the equipment changes to manipulate the baffles and proving new adjustments, of course at the end of making changes it was so necessary to check that everything was working well. Teamwork is very necessary to perform important changes such as these, and Ternium represents teamwork to me.