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    Steel 101 Conference a Success with Help from SSAB

    Written by John Packard


    On Wednesday and Thursday of this past week a sold-out group of attendees and six Steel Market Update instructors, one event coordinator and a potential future instructor traveled to Mobile, Alabama to participate in the first Steel 101 workshop of 2018. The workshop was a success aided by the generosity of the SSAB plate mill which we toured on Wednesday afternoon.

    Each workshop begins with instruction about the steelmaking and rolling process. We introduced a new instructor Chuck McDaniels, a former metallurgist with Sparrows Point, who discussed how an integrated steel mill makes steel from iron ore. Complementing Chuck was Steve Murphy, another process expert only from the mini-mill side of the industry. Combined they described in detail blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace and electric arc furnace operations as well as ladle metallurgy and vacuum degassing stations and how they impact the ultimate final product being rolled.

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