Tuesday, 7 October 2025

Bryan Webler

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 worldwide steel industry. 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.

8:50 a.m.

Break

9 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 that occur during the will be explained. Finally, we will discuss production trends and the impacts of the processes on energy and the environment.

10:45 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. The use of ladle metallurgy treatment and furnaces, as well as degassing, will be explained. Inclusion formation, modification and removal will be discussed.

11:45 a.m.

Noon

Lunch and Plant Tour of U. S. Steel – Fairfield Tubular Operations

5–6 p.m.

Reception

Wednesday, 8 October 2025

7 a.m.

Breakfast

8 a.m.

Continuous Casting of Steel
This session will introduce fundamentals of steel solidification at the micro and macro scale. Then the continuous casting machine will be described, focusing on different types of casters and the various stages of the casting process. Finally, we will review common sources of process disruptions and defects in the steel that can be introduced during the casting process.

9:20 a.m.

Break

9:30 a.m. 

Steel Properties and Specifications 
This session introduces the connections between steel chemical composition, structure and properties. Tensile properties and methods of measurement will be introduced, as these are important for nearly all steels. Then we will cover the ways in which steel crystal structure and microstructure are modified by alloying elements, deformation and heating. The objective of these modifications is to change steel properties. The properties are used to differentiate steel grades, or broad categories that have been adopted by industry. Grades and associated property requirements are defined in standards documents and the session will review some examples of these standards documents that list requirements for different grades of steel.

10 a.m.

Break

Michael Peretic

Instructor: Michael J. Peretic, SMS group Inc. (Retired)

10:30 a.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.

1 p.m.

Long Products Production
This section 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 p.m.

Pickling of Flat Products
The Pickling process will be defined and described. Differences in types of scale will also be discussed, along with the chemical reactions that form the basis of Pickling operations. Finally, an overview of a representative Pickling line will be presented. 

2:15 p.m.

Break

2:30 p.m.

Cold Rolling, Annealing and Temper Rolling of Flat Products
An overview of 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