The World Steel Association (worldsteel) has announced the winners of the fifth steeluniversity.org Challenge.
The industry category winner was a team from DragonSteel/China Steel Corp. of Taiwan, China, and the runner-up was a team from China’s Wuhan Iron and Steel Corp. (WISCO). The winner and the runner-up in the student category were both from China’s Wuhan University of Science and Technology.
The challenge was held online on January 27 over a single 24-hour period. The task was to process an order of steel plate for a yellow goods application (construction and agricultural equipment), using the steeluniversity.org website’s secondary steelmaking and plate rolling simulations. The team successfully producing the order at the lowest cost/tonne within the allotted time frame was declared the winner.
This year’s competition attracted more than 43,000 attempts from 645 teams representing 25 different countries. Four hundred and fifty-three teams successfully completed the task, using a steel grade specially defined for this event.
"Initiated in 2005, the Challenge is a global competition that attracts a growing number of students and new employees in the steel industry,” said Ian Christmas, Director General of the World Steel Association. “We are very pleased to see the nearly 300% jump in the number of attempts this year. This is evidence that steeluniversity.org is an extraordinary tool for training the next generation of steelmakers to develop their knowledge and skill to higher levels."
The top five teams were:
1) Chia Mei Liu and Yen Hsun Wu of DragonSteel/CSC — $591.878 cost/tonne
2) Qian Long, Qingjin Guan, Junli Tian, Wei Wang, and Hongwei Liu of WISCO — $593.420
3) ZhangShi Hou and ZhaoJun Cheng of China’s Ansteel — $593.680
4) Guanghao Duan, Ruyi Zhao, Hounian Xiao, Honghua Liu, and Zhixin Xiao of WISCO — $593.994
5) MengGuo Qing and Tian Yu of Ansteel — $594.012.
The top ten countries ranked by number of attempts were:
1) China = 13,733 attempts
2) Taiwan = 8766
3) India = 3411
4) South Korea = 3095
5) Argentina = 1650
6) Brazil = 1515
7) United Kingdom = 842
8) Mexico = 842
9) Russia = 822
10) United States = 544
The steeluniversity.org website, developed and sponsored by the World Steel Association, is an e-learning resource focused on all aspects of steel, including steelmaking technology and the multitude of steel applications. It provides highly interactive, game-like simulations of the major steelmaking processes in real time. The website’s resources are used by more than 100 steel companies and 700 universities worldwide. Many of its modules have been translated into other languages, including Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Korean, Spanish, Russian, German, and Japanese.
The World Steel Association (worldsteel) is one of the largest industry associations in the world, representing approximately 180 steel producers (including 19 of the world's 20 largest), national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes. worldsteel members produce around 85% of the world's steel.