Missouri S&T students to represent U.S. in international steelmaking event

Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Mo., has announced that two of its metallurgical engineering students will participate in an international steelmaking event in Belgium.

Seth Rummel, a graduate student from Dickinson, N. D., and Allison (Sonny) Tengblad, a senior from Hillsboro, Wis., will travel to Brussels to take part in the 8th Virtual Steelmaking Challenge Feb. 17-18. The pair qualified for the international competition by winning first place in the U.S. competition last November.

The competition is sponsored by SteelUniversity.org, an online initiative developed by the World Steel Organization to provide education and training tools for students and professionals. The website provides game-like simulations to help students learn processes related to steelmaking.

“It’s all about optimizing the process to see who can make the cheapest steel,” said Rummel, who earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Missouri S&T in 2012. In the November competition, the two students worked together using SteelUniversity’s continuous casting module to create the steel at a cost of $72.24 per ton, best in the U.S.