Current Activities

The Tinplate & Electrogalvaning Technology Committee (TETC) met on May 4, 2010, during AISTech in Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. C.J. Wu of U. S. Steel welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained a brief history of the challenges that have faced the two-year-old TETC since its creation. Eric Almquist of Star Tool and Die volunteered to take the meeting minutes. Dr. Wu reviewed the AIST Anti-Trust Guidelines, and everyone agreed to abide by them. A safety discussion took place. Dr. Frank Goodwin of the International Zinc Association presented an overview of AISTech papers, highlighting the drought of TETC-focused papers. He challenged the committee to help develop papers for AISTech 2011. This led to discussion related to fostering and promoting the TETC. Dr. Stavros Fountoulakis of ArcelorMittal noted the lack of other forums for tinning organizations, and that this is an opportunity to promote the TETC. He explained that metal packaging organizations exist and have an organizational presence for the tin/EG industry, but they don’t focus so much on steel e-coating production processes. Dr. Fountoulakis recommended sending letters to critical contacts to promote the existence of the TETC. The committee chose their new officers as: John Young of ArcelorMittal Weirton as chair, Dr. Wu as vice chair, Dr. Goodwin as papers chair, Mr. Almquist as Meeting Planning Subcommittee chair, Dave Tancibok of Severstal Sparrows Point as the Metallurgy of Tin Plate Subcommittee chair, and Dr. Wu as Producer-Only Subcommittee chair. The TETC mission was reviewed and left unchanged: “Defining and refining the key processes for electroplated steel strip through the exchange of experiences, education and technologies to advance the industry.” The next TETC meeting is planned for Oct. 5–6, 2010, near the Pittsburgh airport, with a tour of the ArcelorMittal Weirton tin mill facility.

The Tinplate & Electrogalvanizing Technology Committee (TETC) met on Tuesday, May 5 in St. Louis, Mo., in conjunction with AISTech 2009. The committee chair, Eric Almquist of Star Tool and Die, opened the meeting by asking the attendees to introduce themselves. Mr. Almquist provided a brief overview of the meeting minutes from the TETC teleconference meeting held on April 28. The meeting minutes were approved by the committee as written. The TETC then elected its leadership for the 2009–2010 term. C.J. Wu of United States Steel Corporation was chosen as the committee chair. John Young of ArcelorMittal Weirton was elected as vice chair. The committee mission statement was reviewed and left as is: “Defining and refining the key processes for electroplated steel strip through the exchange of experiences, education, and technologies to advance the industry.” The committee agreed to develop a Membership Subcommittee to focus on reaching, polling and attracting those who enthusiastically participated in the AISI and ASF committees to attain that “critical mass” of grass-roots enthusiasm from the producers. Mr. Almquist was presented with a plaque to commemorate his service as 2008–2009 TETC chair by Frank Goodwin, former committee chair. The next TETC meeting is scheduled for Sept. 29–30, 2009, and will include a plant tour of the ArcelorMittal Weirton tin mill.

The Galvanizing Technology Committee (GTC) and the Electroplating Technology Committee (EPTC) held a joint meeting Sept. 24–26 in Merrillville, Ind. The meeting began with producers only on the 24th and continued on the 25th with the suppliers. Eric Almquist of Star Tool & Die Works is the chair of both committees and called the meeting to order. He welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked the attendees to introduce themselves. He then gave a brief presentation of how these committees were formed from the former AISI Metallic Coated Sheet Manufacturing Committee, AISI Tin Mill Practices Manufacturing Committee and AIST Coating and Process Lines Operating Committee. He established the meeting “ground rules” of supplier conduct, which is to keep all the discussions technical during the meeting without any commercialism. C.J. Wu of United States Steel Corporation provided an overview of the AESF Group, whose focus is continuous electroplating of metals to steel strip. The AESF Group is considering blending with the EPTC in the future. The meeting continued with a discussion on the safety survey. The next discussion was on energy and utilities within their plants. The committees split into separate rooms for the afternoon. The GTC producer-only group discussed the furnace survey, which had a broad range of topics, including furnace types, refractory used and where, burner types and furnace management. They continued their discussions to the zinc bath management survey. The EPTC producer-only group started with a discussion on plating methods, led by Charlie Chaban of Severstal and Mr. Wu. Giovanni Astengo of Tenova Strip Processing gave a technical presentation on the latest developments of insoluble anodes for tinplating. Andrew Procopio of Inductotherm provided a technical presentation on the history and latest developments of tin reflow furnace options. The committee elected to change its name to the Tinplate & Electrogalvanizing Technology Committee (TETC). The full GTC met on the morning of the 25th, with the committee defining their mission statement and selecting abstracts for AISTech 2009. Frank Goodwin of the International Lead Zinc Research Organization presented an overview of Corus’ new proprietary hot-dip coating, MagiZinc. Shrikant Bhat of ArcelorMittal provided an informative technical presentation about advances in high-strength steels for automotive applications. The GTC elected Stavros Fountoulakis of ArcelorMittal as the producer co-chair. The next GTC meeting will be in Fairfield, Ala., on March 4–5, 2009, and will include a tour of U. S. Steel’s Fairfield galvanizing line. The full EPTC met on the morning of the 25th, with the committee defining their mission statement and selecting abstracts for AISTech 2009. The next EPTC meeting will be in Weirton, W.Va., on April 21–23, 2009, with possible tours of either ArcelorMittal Weirton or Ohio Coatings Co. Both full committees then met in the afternoon, beginning with a panel discussion on energy, chaired by David Schalles of Bloom Engineering, Gerald Vellente of Ajax Tocco, Ram Ramalingam of ADS Machinery Corp. and Eugene Arnold of ArcelorMittal. The meeting finished on the morning of the 26th, with the GTC visiting the galvanizing lines at U. S. Steel–Midwest and the EPTC visiting the tin mill at U. S. Steel–Gary Works.

The Coating and Process Lines Operating Committee (CPLOC) met at AISTech 2008 on May 6, 2008. The committee chair, Frank Goodwin of the International Lead Zinc Research Organization Inc., welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked each person to introduce themselves. Dr. Goodwin volunteered to take the meeting minutes. The CPLOC had 93 members before being restructured into two new committees: the Galvanizing Technology Committee (GTC) and the Electroplating Technology Committee (EPTC). The GTC integrated with the former AISI Manufacturing Committee on Metallic Coated Sheet Practices, and the EPTC integrated with the former AISI Manufacturing Committee on Tin Mill Practices. The CPLOC members had the option to belong to either or both of the new committees. Within both the GTC and the EPTC, a producer-only subcommittee was developed to meet the needs of the AISI predecessor committees. A steel producer will chair each of these subcommittees. Dr. Goodwin reviewed the objectives of the former AIST committee, which was to facilitate peer-to-peer communication among its members. This consisted mainly of developing programming for the AISTech and MS&T conferences held each year, and also other short courses, specialty training conferences, and meetings as desired by its members. The AISI committee facilitated peer-to-peer communication among line operators, and this had been very successfully done through the use of questionnaires that prepared participants for the meetings. This, together with plant tours, facilitated dialogue and helped meet the objectives of the AISI committee very well. Dr. Goodwin urged that these practices be preserved. The group discussed the different makeup of the two predecessor committees, with the AIST committee consisting of engineering and technical personnel and the AISI committee consisting of operating personnel. It will be necessary to develop a program of interest to both if the integration is to succeed. The election of officers took place. Eric Almquist of Star Tool and Die Works Inc. was elected chair, and Stan Shepard of Olympus Manufacturing Systems Inc. was elected vice chair. Mr. Almquist presented Dr. Goodwin a plaque for his exceptional service and dedication as committee chair for 2007–2008. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 24–26, 2008, in the East Chicago area. Visit www.aist.org for current details.