Project Description
Project Overview: Charter Steel Co., an integrated steel maker, currently has sporadic issues with effectively removing hot mill scale oxide from the surface of steel rod in their pickling operation. There are many variables that affect the scale oxide removal including, but not limited to rod size, rod cooling rate, steel grade, and the acid type and concentration used for pickling (HCl or H2SO4). This project intends to provide better understand these process variables and to quantify their impact on pickling, to help optimize the pickling process at Charter Steel. The project would include developing a hypothesis and theory of the factors that inhibit scale removal based on a review of research as well as the experimental work. Variables to be tested: rod size, rod cooling rate, steel grade, and acid concentration. The pickling agent used will be sulfuric acid. The team will conduct SEM imaging analysis, EDS, microscopy, and experimentation with acids using both UW-Madison laboratory and Charter Steel facilities.
Client: Eric Wagner, Dave Trautner, and Pewel Pepera, Charter Steel Co., Saukville, Wisconsin
Student Team: Makenna Hall, Herbert Durfee, Megan Nasr, Jemimah Mawande, and Grant Rupkalvis
