Brussels, 30 November 2012 – The World Steel Association (worldsteel) announced today the regional champions of the 7th steeluniversity Challenge.
The regional championship took place on 13 and 21 November 2012 over two 24 hour periods. This year’s competition attracted more than 42,600 attempts from 1,148 teams representing 37 different countries, an increase of 76% compared to last year. 896 teams successfully completed the task. The lowest cost achieved at the regional championship was $259.86/tonne.
The new regional champions in the ‘Industry’ and ‘Student’ categories will be invited to compete for the title of World Champion in Brussels in February 2013 in the presence of leaders of the global steel industry.
The entrants were challenged to produce the ‘structural steel’ grade of steel using the Electric Arc Furnace simulation from steeluniversity.org at the minimum overall cost. The produced steel is used for components of various yellow goods machines* (see notes to editors).
| Region | Team members | Affiliation | Country |
| Latin America |
Francisco Diego Araruna da Silva, Alex Maia do Nascimento |
Gerdau Aços Brasil | Brazil |
| North America |
Richard Zhang, Kyle Cormier |
Gerdau | Canada |
| Europe-CIS | Paul Wiggins | Tata Steel Europe | United Kingdom |
| East Asia-Oceania |
Hsieh Yi Human, Chan Shih-Wei |
Dragon Steel, China Steel Corporation |
Taiwan, R.O.C. |
| Middle East-India-Africa |
Manjunathan M., Chandra Prakash S. |
Tata Steel Ltd. | India |
| Region | Team members | Affiliation | Country |
| Latin America |
Lucas Lopes de Castro, Francisco Leonardo Martins de Sousa |
Universidade Federal do Ceará | Brazil |
| North America |
Thiago Ivo de Sousa Menezes, Christopher Lenchyshyn |
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières | Canada |
| Europe-CIS |
Andraž Bradeško, Anže Tekavčič |
University of Ljubljana | Slovenia |
| East Asia-Oceania |
Yang Yilong, Lu Yanguo |
University of Science and Technology Liaoning | China |
| Middle East-India-Africa |
Jaya Gupta, Anika Jain |
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur | India |
Note:
- Yellow goods include construction and earth moving equipment, quarrying equipment and fork lift trucks. A wide range of different steel products and grades are used to make components for these machines, including plate, special profiles, engineering steels, tubes and strip products.
- The steeluniversity.org website is a free and innovative 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. This award-winning, online initiative is developed and sponsored by the World Steel Association.
- steeluniversity.org resources are used by more than 100 steel companies and 200 universities worldwide. Many of its modules have been translated into other languages, including Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Korean, Spanish, Russian, German and Japanese.
- steeluniversity.org won the European Academic Software Awards (EASA) in 2004 and the steeluniversity project team was recognised with the AIST’s Benjamin F. Fairless Award in 2008.
- The World Steel Association (worldsteel) is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world. worldsteel represents approximately 170 steel producers (including 17 of the world’s 20 largest steel companies), national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes. worldsteel members represent around 85% of world steel production.