BOD Chairman Joo-hyeon Kim has been an outside director of POSCO since 2015. He previously served as president of the Hyundai Research Institute and chairman of the Economic Subcommittee of the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation.  He is currently the CEO of Financial News. He Seong-jin Kim, is an expert in industrial policies. He was the Deputy Director-General of Industry in the Prime Minister’s Office, a presidential secretary for policy management, a presidential secretary for industrial policies, the administrator of the Small and Medium Business Administration, the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, and president of Hankyong National University.  

CEO & President In-hwa Jang served as the head of multiple organizations, including the New Business Management Office of POSCO, the Steel Solution Marketing Office. and the Technology Investment Headquarters. He was also appointed as head of the Steel Production Headquarters last year, and oversaw steel production sites.

Joong-seon Jeon, served as head of the Raw Materials Purchasing Office of POSCO, head of the Management Strategy Office, and CEO of POSCO C&C. He was promoted to vice-president last month after being appointed as head of Corporate Strategy & Finance Center The shareholders approved the financial statements, reorganized expert committees and revised part of the Articles of Incorporation, including the increase of the number of outside directors.

POSCO CEO Ohjoon Kwon remarked at the general shareholders’ meeting, “POSCO celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. To make a new leap forward in 2018, we will further consolidate our world-leading position in the steel industry, reshuffle our business strategy by with a focusing on high-yield core businesses, converge create convergence businesses with group affiliates, and continuously seeking new business opportunities for our future growth.”

In addition, POSCO is planning to operate the CEO candidates nurturing program more substantially. This program establishes plans for individuals who were selected through an objective verification process from general managers and higher-ranking officials at POSCO and its affiliates, and nurtures them in a customized way. 100 people have benefitted from this program each year since March 2016. Program participants work for companies that POSCO invested in and for its overseas subsidiaries, while participating in leading domestic and overseas universities’ business management courses to foster their entrepreneurial competency and global mindset.

Meanwhile, to repay the country and citizens for their continued support for POSCO since 1968, the business announced that they are planning to construct the Science and Technology Experience Center and the Cultural Complex as part of their activities to celebrate POSCO’s 50th anniversary.

Cover photo courtesy of News World.

Marco Rosignoli – Bridge Building Expert

Marco Rosignoli has more than 20 years of experience in bridge construction and design. (Source: San Francisco Public Press)

Marco Rosignoli is an expert in bridge design, construction, forensic engineering, consulting and education, with over 37 years of experience in 21 countries. Through a two-part series, Rosignoli gave readers an in-depth look into emerging megacities and their infrastructure needs. According to Rosignoli, efficient transportation is the key to an economically competitive city, and megacities will call for mega-sized bridges made of high-quality steel. Read on to find out more.

Part one: Ask an Expert: Building Bridges for Megacities

Part two: Ask an Expert: Building Bridges for Megacities – Part 2

Naim Josefi – Fashion Designer

Naim Josefi is an innovative designer who mixes fashion and technology. (Source: Naim Josefi)

Naim Josefi runs a fashion company based in Stockholm, Sweden, and is widely known for winning Project Runway Sweden back in 2012. Josefi is a fashion designer who is blurring the boundaries between science and fashion as his projects include steel dresses, 3D printed shoes and laser-printed jeans. Find out why the designer chooses to work with steel and incorporate new technologies into his art.

Read on: Ask an Expert: Fashion Forward with Steel

Professor Bill Arnold – Oil Industry Expert

Bill Arnold is a professor in the practice of energy management at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. Previously, Professor Arnold was Royal Dutch Shell’s Washington director of international government relations and senior counsel for the Middle East, Latin America and North Africa for 16 years.

Bill Arnold is an Energy Management Professor at Rice University. (Source: Society of Petroleum Engineers)

Professor Arnold gave readers an insider’s analysis of the rapidly-changing oil industry marked by unpredictable oil prices. He says, in the midst of change, there are newly-developing business opportunities and alternative sources of fuel such as natural gas that will subsequently create more demand for high-quality steel.   

Find out more: Ask an Expert: The Role of Steel in a Changing Oil Industry

Park Jong-jae – Automotive Columnist

Park Jong-jae is a motorsports columnist and the former editor-in-chief at F1 Racing Korea. Back in May, Park contributed a two-part series on POSCO GIGA STEEL. In the first part, Park reinforced the need for lightweight materials in the auto industry and highlighted some of the most successful cases of POSCO GIGA STEEL application from POSCO’s partners including GM Korea and Ssangyong Motors.

2016 Chevy Cruze Body Structure with POSCO GIGA STEEL. (Source: World Auto Steel)

Read more: Ask an Expert: POSCO GIGA STEEL Opens Door to the Future of the Auto Industry

In part two, he took readers through the 6 different types of POSCO GIGA STEEL and how they can benefit different parts of a vehicle.

There are 6 types of POSCO GIGA STEEL. (Source: Astro Awani)

Find more information: Ask an Expert: POSCO GIGA STEEL Goes Beyond the Limits of Traditional Lightweight Materials

Gil Bruvel – Steel Artist

Gil Bruvel is a veteran artist who creates sculptures using stainless steel. (Source: Gil Bruvel)

Gil Bruvel is an artist who works with stainless steel to create beautifully crafted sculptures of the human form. For the past 40 years, Bruvel has dedicated himself to painting, drawing and sculpting. He worked on a series of stainless steel sculpture for his Flow Series that depict aspects of nature mixed with the human body. Check out his creations and learn more about why Bruvel chooses to work artistically with steel.

Take a look: Ask an Expert: Capturing the Fluidity of Life in Ribbons of Steel – An Interview with Gil Bruvel

POSCO’s Masters of Korea

Every year, POSCO names its Masters of Korea. These masters are employees who have become experts in their respective fields through years of hard work and dedication. All 3 Masters of 2017 contributed to POSCO by developing new technologies, coming up with groundbreaking ideas and finding solutions to make POSCO safer, more efficient and highly competitive in the global steel industry. Find out who they are and their journey to becoming the POSCO Masters of Korea.

Master Nam Tae-Gyu has 40 years of experience working for POSCO.

Master Nam Tae-Gyu: POSCO Masters: 40 Years in the Making

Suh Gwang-Il examines machinery at a POSCO steel mill with colleagues.

Master Suh Gwang-Il: POSCO Masters: A Cold Rolling Expert

Master Kim Yong-Hoon played a key role in automating POSCO’s production systems.

Master Kim Yong-Hoon: POSCO Masters: Leading the Way Towards Automation

Thank you to the experts that helped make the Steel Wire shine like steel in 2017. In 2018, we look forward to even more opportunities to collaborate with even more experts to help provide you, our readers, a deeper understanding of steel and its applicability across industries.

“Nowadays, all of the electrical instrumentation control facilities use a digital control system with Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) or Distributed Control Systems (DCS). At that time, the Cold Rolling Maintenance manager gave me the task of drawing up each of the 25 A3 pages of the equipment control block diagram by memory, in a month. It seemed impossible, but I did it faster than anyone.”

The training paid off. In his third year, he quickly detected a disconnection in the winding part of a motor during a daily inspection of the cold rolling mill, preventing what could have been a catastrophic equipment accident.

“As a result, I found the same defect in 5 other motors and repaired them in advance. It was the first time I was commended for my work and since then, I immersed myself in my work because of the rewarding experience.”

Milestones in Suh’s Career

There was plenty more to be commended for after that as Suh became a crucial member of the cold rolling mill.

In 1995, Suh was in control of the rolling equipment brought in from Japan at the Pohang Cold Rolling Mill 1. “I had special orders to figure out how to work with the brand-new equipment without any difficulties as soon as possible. For that to happen, I knew I had to be able to communicate freely with the Japanese supervisor. I spent all my free time outside of working hours learning Japanese. Soon, I was able to converse with the supervisor without any trouble. Of course, I was able to operate the equipment faster and better than anyone else.”

His passion for achievement continued. Starting from 1997, he became a member of a new development Task Force Team (TFT) for the the Cold Rolling Mill 1. Together the team achieved a processing speed of 2,150 mpm which was the fastest among all the steel mills in the world at the time.

Sheets of cold rolled steel

His next task was at Zhangjiagang Pohang Stainless Steel Co., Ltd., in China. It was the source of many problems for POSCO, starting with the vibrations coming from the payoff reel (POR) of the annealing and pickling lines. He tried stabilizing the base and frame, but the vibrations wouldn’t stop. He finally found the root of the problem: it was the oxygen that seeped into the hydraulic oil that caused the vibrations. Right away he installed an air vent and the vibrations stopped.

In 2001, Suh joined the Double Reversing Mill’s new line TFT and successfully completed the planning, design and installation construction of all the equipment. All that was left was the trial when they ran into issues. The Japanese supervisors couldn’t properly laminate the thinnest sheet of steel that was 0.05 millimeters as they insisted on using a roll gap to roll out the steel. Suh thought of a better way. He persuaded his team and supervisors to try combining the roll gap method with the stretch rolling method for better results. His idea was applied right away, to achieve the desired thickness.

Expertise in Cold Rolling

Suh’s numerous achievements coupled with his endless efforts to learn made him an expert in his field of cold rolling.

In 2006, Suh developed a technology called the Roll Force Mode to take care of plate breakage problems. From 2008 to 2009, Suh took successful steps to improve the welding machine for the annealing and pickling process. He achieved an error margin of less than 0.001 millimeters on all the welding equipment.

His latest achievement was in February of this year when his team completed the trial run of the cold rolling process 3 without any external support. The process of rolling Hyper NO had never been done before, so they had to try numerous times to find the most desirable settings for the equipment and the inputs. At the end of the demanding process, they were successful.

Working Philosophy/ Results

In 2011, Suh received the CEO’s Exemplary Award, and was named the Maintenance Man of the Year in 2013. When asked for his secret to success, he answered, “steady learning, deeply caring for the facilities and communicating with my colleagues. If I did not practice these three things, I would not be where I am today.”

Suh Gwang-Il on site at POSCO’s steel mill with his colleagues

Among his colleagues, Suh is known for his ability to identify different equipment and machinery by the sound it makes. It is this kind of practice, unending curiosity and genuine interest in his work that makes Suh Gwang-Il a true master.

Compared to the world’s very first cars, today’s cars are faster, stronger, safer and have more sophisticated designs. As alternative materials like aluminum are increasingly being used for car parts that were originally made of steel, some even refer to this trend as a “material war.”

“Material War” in the Auto Industry

Recently, various substitutes for steel have entered the picture and are being applied in commercial vehicles. The most commonly used materials are aluminum and CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic).

Beginning in the 1930’s, aluminum was primarily used as a lightweighting material for race cars and the outer panel of a vehicle. On the day of the Eifel race, the Mercedes-Benz weighed over the maximum limit and in an attempt to resolve this, the white paint was stripped from the frame, leaving the car’s aluminum frame completely exposed. This is how the Benz got its famous nickname, the “Silver Arrows.”

Pictured is the Mercedes Benz “Silver Arrows” racecar with its paint completely stripped off to reduce the weight. (Source: Daimler AG)

Safety regulations were less strict then than they are today. If there was an accident, the outcome would most likely be a severe injury or even death. With the goal of increased protection, researchers began to use tubular frames made of chromium molybdenum steel in order to reinforce the rigidity of the vehicle.

As the 1970’s rolled around, CFRP, a material that was already being applied in the aerospace industry, made an appearance in Formula 1 and automotive researchers quickly began discovering its potential and value. Soon enough, CFRP was considered an ideal material for race cars.

The Audi A2 and A8 made with aluminum car frames during the early 2000’s (Source: Audi AG)

The rapid implementation of new substitute materials in the motorsports industry set a precedent for the auto industry as well. In the early 2000s, Audi shocked the industry by presenting the A2 and A8, two vehicles with car frames that were made completely out of aluminum. In 2015, BMW created a large-sized sedan made of CFRP, which was only used in a limited number of cars. This stunned consumers and the industry yet again. As advances were made with aluminum and CFRP, it seemed that steel would inevitably lose its place in the automotive material industry.

However, those who believed that the age of steel was over forgot one thing: steel is constantly evolving. While it is true that aluminum and CFRP could replace steel and that they are lighter, the disadvantages that come with these materials confirm that steel is a much more efficient material.

Aluminum

Aluminum, for example, is lighter than steel, but because it has less strength, thicker pieces need to be used. In order to achieve the same level of strength as steel, it needs to be mixed with other materials. Also, aluminum has a low melting point and easily leads to the formation of the oxide film, a factor that makes it difficult to weld. The high thermal conductivity makes the heat that is produced at the time of welding spread, making the material more brittle.

These disadvantages mean aluminum has to be welded in other ways such as riveting, a method of mechanical joining using thick mushroom-shaped nails or adhesive. If the aluminum is not tightly joined during the riveting process, oxide films form in between the cracks resulting in fatigue failure. If a tackifier was used in the process, an impact or collision could easily rupture the adhesive lining. Addressing these problems, while also ensuring that the frame is durable and light, has proved to be a much more expensive process than manufacturing a traditional steel car frame.

As such, numerous factors including durability, safety, and efficiency must be considered when choosing a material to be applied to a car.

From the 1930s to the ‘70s, it was possible to use aluminum in race cars because the vehicles were only used for one or two races. The aluminum pieces were hammered into shape by hand or joined together by rivets, but mass production of aluminum car frames was a very difficult operation. To this day, aluminum is still a difficult material to work with due to its high cost and the complicated technology involved in the production process.

CFRP

CFRP, which is known to be lighter and stronger than steel, also has several issues. Although a method for mass production has recently been established, it requires a much longer production time (the time allowed for one product to be produced) for a car body or shell, meaning that it also yields higher labor costs.

The McLaren MP4/1 was the first car frame to be made from CFRP.

Recently, Boeing and BMW began to research ways to recycle CFRP, but unlike steel or aluminum, it is fundamentally impossible to melt CFRP and give it a “new life”. Another reason why it is not an eco-friendly material is that various chemical products are used in the manufacturing process.

Also, 80% of carbon fiber production, one of the core materials in CFRP, is used by the aviation industry. Because the demand is much higher than the supply, it is much more expensive than steel and has yet to fully make its way into the automotive industry.

Because these shortcomings have not been addressed, researchers have started to turn their eyes back to steel. Even Audi, which once considered its aluminum car frames a major strength, has adopted steel to create the car frame for their newest sedan. Other major automakers still continue to look to steel as the main material as well.

The Shift Back to Steel

The reason for the shift back to steel is because it not only addresses certain disadvantages of alternative materials but also because it is a more affordable choice. The launch of POSCO GIGA STEEL and PosM, in particular, introduced a whole new level of steel.

Audi has turned away from a fully aluminum car frame and has begun incorporating high-tensile steel plates, as indicated by the purple portions of the car frame.

[clickToTweet tweet=”PosM is POSCO’s unique brand of steel that goes beyond the limits of traditional steel plates and exhibits a new level of performance.” quote=”PosM is POSCO’s unique brand of steel that goes beyond the limits of traditional steel plates and exhibits a new level of performance.” theme=”style6″]

PosM includes three different series of steel. The “E Series” focuses on elongation, the “Y Series” focuses on the yield strength and the “B Series” balances the benefits of the two.

The highlighted parts represent the parts that have been applied to the “E Series” of PosM

PosM “E Series”

The “E Series” was once thought to be only theoretically possible and has long been known as a dream material amongst the world’s leading steel companies. This is because it can meet two demanding conditions at once: strength and formability.

Not only does it have 2-9 times more processability compared to existing materials, it also has an excellent ability to absorb impact, which can make a car safer when used in those engine room parts that absorb and disperse impact.

Many steel companies attempted to produce this material but were not able to complete it due to difficulties in production. However, in 2008, POSCO successfully developed this material for the first time and made it available for purchase.

The highlighted parts represent the parts that have applied the “Y Series” of PosM.

PosM “Y Series”

The “Y series” is used for the parts of a car that protect the passengers, especially because of the yield strength, which represents the strength of a material until it becomes deformed, is quite high. This includes, for example, filler parts that prevent the passenger compartment from becoming damaged in the event of a collision.

PosM “B Series”

The “B series” has both the benefits of the “E series” and “Y series”. It is one of the best materials that can be formed by cold forming, which is a simpler process than what is used to make Hot Press Forming (HPF) steel. Because it is easy to process, it can be manufactured into complex shapes and yield a much lower processing cost.

Until now, there has never been a steel that could exhibit both high strength and durability like PosM has. PosM, first developed by POSCO in 2016, is an indispensable material for automobiles.

Through PosM, which exhibits next-level performance compared to existing advanced high-strength steel solutions, steel is once again being considered as an essential material in automobiles. Also, POSCO GIGA STEEL is rapidly advancing to meet the needs of today’s evolving industry, leading the advanced strength steel market.

POSCO GIGA STEEL, with outstanding processability, affordability and a tensile strength that is over three times that of aluminum with the same thickness, will continue to be a very important material in electric vehicles (EVs) which define the present and future of the automotive industry. It will help overcome the limits of batteries used in EVs and allow the vehicle to travel longer distances with its lightweight qualities and make the car body safer by satisfying the most stringent of safety standards.

In addition, the advantage of being more economical, cleaner and easier to recycle than other materials is necessary for an age where consumers value eco-friendly solutions. As long as cars exist, steel will always be one of the most important materials. Various manufacturers are already turning their attention to hybrid car frames that utilize a combination of aluminum, magnesium and carbon composites, with steel as the main focus.  As advanced high-strength steel continues to make improvements it has the potential to replace the need for these other materials altogether.

Automobile development continues to move forward with steel, and at the crux of this progress is POSCO GIGA STEEL.

Read part one on how POSCO GIGA STEEL goes beyond the limits of traditional lightweight materials and part two on how POSCO GIGA STEEL opens the door to the future of the auto industry.

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