Colorado School of Mines Class Visits Finkl Steel

 

Twenty-five undergraduate and graduate students from the Forging & Forming class in the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO visited Finkl Steel in Chicago, IL on March 9, 2018 for in-depth tours of the working facilities and the Finkl Forging Forum, which gives the students a description of processes prior to each tour. The tours and instructional sessions included steelmaking, ladle metallurgy, vacuum degassing, ingot pouring, vacuum arc remelting, hot forging, heat treating, machining, non-destructive evaluation, and quality control, all from the perspective of those that perform and improve these processes on a daily basis at Finkl Steel. In addition to the incredible exposure to a large-scale steel forging operation, time was set aside to allow the students interact directly with Finkl engineers to discuss the metallurgical and manufacturing aspects of the production processes along with career advice and guidance. Although the Forging & Forming class includes laboratory sessions on blacksmith forging, friction measurement in forging, hot- and cold-forging of aluminum, and finite element modeling of hot-forging experiments, a tour of a manufacturing facility ties many of the principles and concepts learned during the semester together to show how they apply in the forging industry. Senior Kyle Haines indicated that “…it was awesome to see such a massive piece of steel being quenched, and I was surprised by the noise!” The trip is supported by Finkl Steel and the Forging Industry Educational and Research Foundation and graduate student Emily Mitchell added “The trip is the highlight of our class!”