BRTC CTC students tour Nucor (L to R): Tony Millsap, Darenda Kersey, Kaitlyn Louvier, Antonio Garcia, Aiden Walton, Lee Stanback, Eric Copeland, Nathan Mode, Nucor Electrician/BRTC Electricity Instructor Jeff Logsdon
Black River Technical College (BRTC) Career and Technical Center (CTC) students recently toured Nucor-Yamato Steel Co. in Paragould.
Seven BRTC students enrolled in Industrial Electricity and Welding, both CTC and traditional students from the BRTC Pocahontas, Paragould, and Piggott campuses, were accompanied by BRTC’s Director of Career and Technical Center Darenda Kersey and Nucor Electrician/BRTC AC/DC Fundamentals Instructor Jeff Logsdon on the tour.
Students toured the entire steel-making process starting in the scrap yard where large scrap buckets are loaded with scrap by a crane that travels on train rails. The scrap then is transported to the melt shop where a large overhead crane picks it up and transports it to the electric arc furnace. The roof of the furnace then shifted, and the overhead crane opened the bottom of the scrap bucket and the scrap fell into the furnace. A huge flame came roaring out of the furnace and the roof was moved back into position.
At this point, the three electrodes lowered into the furnace and started to arc as the electrodes started to raise and lower to establish a constant arc which then melted the scrap down to a liquid.
The liquid is then moved to the caster which takes the liquid steel from the melt shop and pours it into a mold that is cooled with water. As the semi-solid steel travels through the mold and then through a straightener, it is cut to length by torches.
It then goes to a cooling bed to cool and when cool enough it is picked up by an overhead crane and is transported to the bloom bay for storage until the rolling mill is ready to roll it into the final product.
The students then visited the rolling mill. The first stop was the reheat furnace where the slabs, and blooms from the caster bloom bay are put on a table and then travel down the roll line to the charge machine. The operator that is controlling the reheat will then put the cold blooms into the reheat and they move through the furnaces by a walking beam. When the operator at the breakdown mill is ready for the next bar he sends a request signal and a bar is discharged from the reheat at approximately 2,200 degrees. When it is in its liquid state it is approximately 3000 degrees.
They then moved down the roll line watching the bar come to shape as it traveled back and forth through the mill stands.
Students toured the electrical rooms where the drives for all the motors and the PLCs that control the whole process are. One of the electricians explained the operations of the PLCs and how they might be used in troubleshooting a problem.
The tour ended with Nucor providing a pizza lunch for the students.
“I think the students learned a lot on this tour and they were in awe of the whole process,” said Logsdon.
“BRTC is in the process of developing a partnership with NUCOR to offer internship opportunities to BRTC students in the near future,” said the BRTC Dean of Business and Technology Phillip Dickson.
For more information about BRTC’s CTC program, contact Kersey at (870) 248-4184 or Darenda.kersey@blackrivertech.edu.
For more information about BRTC’s Industrial Electricity program, visit https://blackrivertech.edu/college-coursework/academic-units/technical-programs/.