POSCO held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new wire rod processing center in Jeffersonville, Indiana on September 22. More than 150 people, including POSCO CEO Ohjoon Kwon, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, Representative Trey Hollingsworth, Chicago’s Consul General Jong-guk Lee and officials from local customers such as Nissan, Fontana, Taeyang Metal Industrial Co., Ltd. and Semblex attended the ceremony.

From third on the left to right is Economic and Redevelopment Director Rob Waiz, Governor Eric Holcomb, POSCO CEO Ohjoon Kwon, Representative Trey Hollingsworth and the Consul General in Chicago, Jong-guk Lee.

Wire rods are steel products used to make bolts, nuts, bearings and long steel used in automobiles, electronics, industrial machines and construction. POSCO is planning to focus its production on high-end automotive parts and bearings that are not currently being produced by local steelmakers in the U.S.

The new wire rod processing center will bring raw materials from Korea, heat-treat them, remove impurities, process them into thin wire rods and customize the final product to the thickness and strength that customers want. Construction began in April 2016, and POSCO invested a total USD 20.9 million. It is POSCO’s second largest overseas wire rod processing center, next to its center in Mexico.

From third on the left to right is Economic and Redevelopment Director Rob Waiz, Governor Eric Holcomb, POSCO CEO Ohjoon Kwon, Representative Trey Hollingsworth and the Consul General in Chicago, Jong-guk Lee.

POSCO is planning to preempt the high-end wire rod market in the US by not merely selling products, but also providing local services such as quality support, development of new steel products and provision of utilization techniques. The products manufactured will be delivered to Semblex and Taeyang Metal Industrial, Korean companies in the U.S. and local automotive parts makers like Nissan and Fontana.

JP Steel Co., Ltd., which owns 2.2 percent of stakes in the new wire rod processing center, will directly oversee production. JP Steel possesses the technology used for processing POSCO’s wire rods into products that meet the thickness specifications of customers. One of POSCO’s strategies for ensuring the mutual prosperity of small, medium and large-sized companies is to enter a new overseas market together with small and medium-sized suppliers while protecting their technology and business areas.    

Governor Eric Holcomb said, “I hope that POSCO’s wire rod processing center will help improve the industrial competitiveness of American automakers and parts makers, and invigorate the local economy. We will do everything we can to help the new plant become stabilized early.”

CEO Kwon stated, “POSCO is now able to sell our premium products to the United States, the world’s largest wire rod market, and American automakers and parts makers can use quality products to enhance their competitiveness. I hope that this will help domestic parts makers using wire rods make inroads into the US market.”

Cover photo courtesy of Biz Journals.

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SIEMENS is a digital company where “all production processes are optimally integrated and controlled by IT.” Its plant in Amberg is a model smart factory thanks to its 1,000 sensors used to connect its IOT technology that makes it possible to check for abnormalities at each stage of the production process. These sensors can also stop the production line if any defective products are found and replace them with new ones. Also, with the ability to analyze 50 million pieces of process information per day, SIEMENS is continuously optimizing its production processes to ensure the lowest possible rate of defects.

GE is slowly shifting to a software company by combining new IT with its traditional manufacturing processes for aviation engines and power turbines. Recently, the company built digital ecosystems into its factories by bringing in software specialists, creating a digitalization department, and developing diagnostic programs. Similar to POSCO, GE’s power generation turbine plant in Greenville is on its way to being converted into a smart factory. GE also recently opened the Advanced Manufacturing Works (AMW) facility, a space that freely allows engineers to test out new manufacturing ideas.

At POSCO, ever since forming the Smart Solution Council in 2016, they have been integrating ICT into their core businesses – steel, construction, and energy – which has had a significant impact in transforming Korea’s manufacturing industry in the process. In its smart factories, POSCO takes 50 years of manufacturing expertise and combines it with IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence technology to produce and supply high-quality products in an economical fashion.

POSCO’s steel plate factory at Gwangyang Works has transformed its integrated production process by building a data integration infrastructure that encompasses all of its operations and facilities. It has also created a data pre-analysis system that can preemptively detect abnormalities. In addition, they have installed laser sensors with AI functionality on the second hot rolling mill at Pohang Works.

Kwon plans to continue developing new businesses under the “Smart Industry” label. Through close cooperation with POSCO’s major affiliates such as POSCO E&C, POSCO Energy, and POSCO ICT, Kwon ultimately aims to reorganize POSCO’s entire business structure by cultivating several sectors that all embrace smart technology (Smart Factory, Smart Buildings & Cities, and Smart Energy).

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In response, China’s government and industries are turning to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, seeing the increased integration of information technology, big data and the internet as the key to revive its manufacturing sector and create new opportunities for growth.

How is China preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution? And how will that affect their steel industry? Those are the topics explored by Dr. Chang-do Kim, senior principal researcher at POSCO Research Institute (POSRI), in the most recent issue of POSRI’s Asian Steel Watch.

China’s Approach to the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the combining of the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computers and all the other emerging smart IT technologies to create a faster and more powerful industrial system that blurs the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological. In Germany, “Industry 4.0” is the official approach to this new era, while in the United States, officials talk about the “Industrial Internet.”

In China, there are two complementary government policies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: “Made in China 2025” and “Internet Plus.” Internet Plus was introduced in March 2015, featuring an action plan of integrating mobile, cloud computing, big data and the IoT with manufacturing to help develop e-commerce, industry networks and the international presence of Chinese companies.

Made in China 2025 is even larger in scope, with five “basic directions”, four “guiding principles,” nine “objectives”, five “key projects”, 10 “priority sectors” and eight “actions for policy improvement” from 2015 to 2025. But the main emphasis of these many plans and aims is clear: innovation.

Made in China 2025 is also just the first step in a three-stage plan to boost China’s manufacturing and innovative capabilities over 35 years. The point of the ambitious, long-term strategy is to make China a world-leader. At the moment, China sees the world’s top manufacturers divided into three tiers, with the United States at the top, and Japan and Germany in the second tier. China considers itself to be third-tier now, but plans on becoming second-tier by 2025 and the leader of the second tier by 2035, finally becoming top tier by 2049. And at the heart of all those manufacturing plan is the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The Potential of Smart Factories in China

A big part of modernizing industry involves building smart factories – factories that have been transformed through sensors, programmable logic controllers and other control systems, along with advanced manufacturing applications. And at the heart of smart factories is cyber-physical systems (CPS), which integrate the physical side of manufacturing with the digital.

One market research company predicts that between 2014 and 2020, the world market for smart factories will grow at 5.4 percent CAGR, rising from US$41.3 billion to an estimated US$56.6 billion.

China has been the world’s biggest manufacturer since 2010, which gives it a significant advantage in moving toward the future, especially in compiling big data. Having a government willing to provide such heavy support is also a great boom to industries.

However, China also faces significant challenges. Manufacturers around China have greatly different levels of development, with most falling between Industry 2.0 and Industry 3.0 these days. Many analysts think it is more important to get most manufacturers up to Industry 3.0 before pushing onward to Industry 4.0.

Others point out that China is lacking the experts needed to implement smart factories properly. Without the ability to build and analyze big data and CPS, becoming a next-generation leader will be extremely difficult.

However, the Chinese government is already aware of this problem, and is trying to create a phased introduction for smart factories, adding more sophisticated advances as its domestic industry becomes able to handle them.

How Smart Factories Are Transforming China’s Steel Industry

These days, China’s steel manufacturers are facing major challenges to profitability due to overcapacity, environmental regulations, rising costs and other factors. So there is much optimism that introducing smart factories will prove to be quite helpful for the steel industry.

The Baosteel Group’s subsidiary Shanghai Meishan Iron and Steel is already implementing smart manufacturing into its development strategies. Baosteel is also looking to introduce an e-commerce platform, and make other IT advances.

But with the different levels of development among China’s various steelmakers, experts think phased implementation of smart factories will be needed in this sector, too, along with a selection and concentration of companies. For small- and medium-sized steelmakers, the emphasis should be on the early stages of automation and management, looking at such areas as manufacturing records and defect logs.

For larger manufacturers, the focus should be on creating real-time systems that connect the automation control of their factories. And for the largest steelmakers, they can work on multifunctional intelligence, wired and wireless communication with AI and autonomous productions of facilities and systems.

In China, as in the rest of the world, the challenges presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution are forcing manufactures to move their capabilities swiftly into the future. And for China’s steel industry, that future is beginning to take shape now. Just as China shocked the world with its rapid rise into a manufacturing powerhouse, now it looks to lead the way with Industry 4.0.

Indeed, this topic is so pressing that the theme of January’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Big data, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), 3D printing and the Internet of Things (IoT) are combining to create seismic changes to industry – including to the world of steel.

Just what we mean by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how that is changing steel were the focus of “The Fourth Industrial Revolution: The Winds of Change Are Blowing in the Steel Industry,” an in-depth essay by Jeho Cheong, senior principal researcher at POSCO Research Institute (POSRI), in the latest issue of POSRI’s Asian Steel Watch.

What Is the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

Industry experts and historians have commonly divided up the rise of modern business in industry into a series of significant eras. The original Industrial Revolution refers to the rise of mechanization, most notably the creation of the steam engine.

About a hundred years after that, the spread of electrical power and related technologies (like the conveyor belt) led to the Second Industrial Revolution: mass production. The Third Industrial Revolution appeared in the late-20^th century with the rise of computers and the internet, leading to informatization and automation.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution builds on the third, but building in speed, scope and impact to blur the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological. All aspects of knowledge and creation are being combined the smart IT technology to become something exponentially more useful and powerful.

A New Paradigm for Industry

The rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is having widespread impact on business, turning many assumptions and practices upside-down. For one thing, the increasing effectiveness of AI technology is threatening many jobs, like in journalism and the financial sectors, where repetitive reports can often be composed by smart algorithms.

This new industrial era also is causing the breakdown of many longstanding business structures. Smart technology is changing how we use energy, how our cars operate and are maintained, and how we pay for goods and services.

But perhaps the biggest change being caused by the Fourth Industrial Revolution is how it is changing value – destroying many traditional sources of value and replacing them with data-driven value. For instance, in the automobile industry, the data about how we drive – where, when, how, etc. – could surpass the value of the cars themselves.

Instead of the economy being primarily about goods, it is becoming about data, and intangible value is exceeding the tangible. The growth of companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook – modern giants built primarily on data – is a clear sign of how the Fourth Industrial Revolution is changing our world.

What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Means for Business

All over the world, governments are teaming up with industry an in attempt to come to terms with these changes. In Germany, they call it “Industry 4.0,” in the United States it is “Advance Manufacturing Partnership,” in China the approaches are “Made in China 2025” and “Internet Plus,” while in Japan it is part of the “New Robot Strategy.”

The nuances and emphases of these approaches are slightly different, but the general idea is the same: to help industry deal with a new, information-based era.

What this means for consumers is increasing customization and personalization. People no longer are content to be part of a large trend. Now they want styles and technologies that work just the way they want to use them. In the past, customization meant huge cost increases, but not anymore.

This in turn is forcing manufacturers to change their entire approach to automation. Instead of central controls and fixed products, now industry is expected to produce dynamic products, constantly reacting to changing situations. Business logistics and manufacturing logistics need to be tightly integrated, to minimize waste and time to market.

Finally, this expansion of value-chains and transformation of manufacturing is changing the nature of service. Where once service was a cost to corporations, today, thanks to better information collection and knowledge of usage patterns, it is becoming a significant revenue source. By using big data, businesses can create valuable information for their customers, which can be monetized and sold.

What the Fourth Industrial Revolution Means for Steel

What do these changes mean for steel? After all, the steel industry is very different than most manufacturing processes: steel requires continuous processing, with liquid steel kept at high temperatures, moving at high speeds. In addition, in the steel-making process, labor is a relatively low cost, so there is little room for automation to bring savings.

But in fact the Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing big changes to steel, too. These new technologies are allowing steel companies to reduce inventory and grow more flexible and responsive to customer needs. It is possible that all information related to steel supply and demand could become available to all producers and consumers, leading to unprecedented transparency and efficiency.

And at POSCO, the aim is even higher: the creation of a “digital genome map.” Just as the Human Genome Project is sequencing the billions of chemical base pairs that make up the human DNA in order to better diagnose and treat diseases, so too is POSCO working on collecting all microdata about every aspect of steel production.

POSCO is looking to create a steel plant that can track every aspect, including production, energy usage, safety, and quality, constantly sensing and responding to inputs. In fact, POSCO’s Gwangyang plate plant is already being turned into a Fourth Industrial Revolution smart factory, and plans are to extend this to all production areas.

The future is just around the corner, and at POSCO, that dedication to innovation is helping to realize the awesome potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for the steel industry.

The steel industry continues to face challenges in many areas, but the outlook for the metal seems to be generally positive. Along with North America and Europe, emerging economics such as South and Southeast Asia are showing resilient growth in their steel forecasts.

One of the reasons why this metal is so carefully observed is due to its role as a key contributor to the circular economy. As a permanent and affordable material that can be repeatedly recycled, its sustainability makes it more appealing than competing industrial materials.

Specific markets are looking strong in terms of steel demand – the automotive sector will maintain growth momentum, supported by strong demand in many countries, and the construction sector is showing steady improvement.

For 2015, the world’s crude steel production amount reached 1,622.8 million tons, and production decreased in all regions except Oceania. Annual production of crude steel for Asia in 2015 was 1,113.8 million tons, 166.2 million tons for the EU, 110.7 million tons for North America and 43.9 million tons for South America.

In 2015, the leading steel-producing countries included: China, Japan, India, the United States and Russia. Countries following closely behind are South Korea (69.73 million tons of crude steel production), Germany (42.68 million tons), Brazil (33.25 million tons), Turkey (31.52 million tons) and Ukraine (22.93 million tons).

South Korea’s economic growth has been greatly aided by the steel market, and it is ranked first for countries using the most steel per capita (1,113.6 kilograms). POSCO has been a crucial part of this growth, placing in the international rankings for top steel-producing countries. The company produced 41.975 million tons in 2015.

We can see there have been relatively modest changes for each of these economies in the table above, and we can expect more shifts in the coming year.

For more information on The World Steel Association’s expected outcomes for 2016 and 2017, click here.

Read on to learn some interesting facts about how steel has been utilized in the histories of the top five steel giants.

5. Russia

Crude Steel Production: 71.11 million tons

Interesting fact: The city of Magnitogorsk, celebrated as the “steel heart of the motherland,” is home to Russia’s largest iron and steel works. During the 1930s, the city was designed under one of Stalin’s Five-Year-Plans, when he erected the then-largest steel plant in the world, the Stalin Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Complex.

4. United States

Crude Steel Production: 78.92 million tons

Interesting fact: Andrew Carnegie, who made his fortune on steel, was the first to initiate the development of a mass-produced version of the material. With his solution, he built the St. Louis Bridge, and convinced people of its stability by having an elephant walk across it on its opening day.

3. India

Crude Steel Production: 89.58 million tons

Interesting fact: The use of iron in India goes back to ancient times, and is even mentioned in epic and religious Sanskrit literature. The Vedas and the Puranas, both sacred texts of Hinduism, reference the metal and speak of its uses during times of peace and war.

2. Japan

Crude Steel Production: 166.18 million tons

Interesting fact: The traditional katana sword, wielded by samurais, is crafted using only the purest steel, tamahagane (“jewel steel” in Japanese). The sword is made from shoveling 25 tons of iron-bearing river sand and charcoal over a course of three days and nights into a tatara, a clay furnace built specifically for a single batch of tamahagane. The smelting process yields about two tons of the material.

1. China

Crude Steel Production: 803.83 million tons

Interesting fact: After inventing the predecessor to the compass (the Sinan) during the Han Dynasty, China developed some of the first compasses in the 11^th century. While initially made of lodestone, magnetized steel needles were used as the core pointer of the navigation tool, suspended in water to create a wet compass. Trading ships during the Song Dynasty were then able to travel to as far as Saudi Arabia without getting lost, expanding on their trade routes.

Production rates according to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) 2015 World Crude Steel Production Performances.

The World’s Top 5 Steel Producing Countries

worldsteel Outlook: Down in 2016, but Rebounding Next Year

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DJSI are indices jointly developed by S&P Dow Jones Indices, a provider of financial information in the United States, with RobecoSAM, a Swiss firm specializing in assessing global sustainable management. They are acknowledged as the world’s most authoritative sustainability indices.

This year in the steel sector, POSCO was one of 15 companies selected as an outstanding company in the global sustainable management indices (DJSI World). POSCO scored the highest in risk management, biodiversity, social contribution, and stakeholder management. The company also received favorable reviews for climate strategies, customer relations management, and securing and assessing talented human resources.

“POSCO will share the assessment results with related departments and upgrade the group’s sustainability in issue management, response to climate change, safety, and health,” said a POSCO official. “We expect these results will deepen the appreciation for sustainability among corporate stakeholders, including investors.”

The DJSI selects the top 10 percent companies for sustainability from the world’s leading 2,500 companies based on research, corporate monitoring and surveys throughout the year.

The DJSI results are widely used by international corporate investors, funds, and financial products for identifying socially responsible investments. Companies recognized as having outstanding sustainability practices can gain additional business opportunities, while also improving the communities around them, thereby achieving stable growth and sustainable development.

Dow Jones Selects POSCO as Industry Leader for Eleventh Consecutive Year

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Birmingham, Alabama was established in 1871 at the foothills of the Appalachians near one of the world’s richest mineral deposits. It was named after Birmingham in the United Kingdom – which was then the center of that country’s steel industry.

Soon after its foundation, the city grew quickly and became known as the “Magic City” for its extraordinary post-Civil War expansion. Its strategic location near Jones Valley, a source of coal, steel ore and limestone, made it a perfect place to produce steel and set up its crucial railway system.

Steel to the End

For centuries, its steel mills and plants were the thriving heart of the city’s economy. Birmingham’s wealth and identity was built on iron and steel (which is an alloy of iron), and was almost solely dependent on these materials.

However, the city’s industrial heavyweight status was not to be permanent. Economic lulls have occurred, and Birmingham has had to revive itself numerous times because of war and epidemics – the city’s industries were hit especially hard by a cholera outbreak of 1873 and the Great Depression in the early 20^th Century.

A Bonded Community

World War II reawakened the city’s industry, however, resulting in an influx of jobs and a subsequent population boom.

Although still thriving, in the postwar years the city became a setting for civil unrest, Birmingham suffered heavily from conflicts relating to civil rights issues. Many residents fled to Birmingham’s outer suburbs, shaken by the discord.

Time has passed since those turbulent years, though, and a tide of developments is slowly taking the Steel City on the road back to prosperity. Birmingham has moved on from its challenges, refashioning itself into a place that is both respectful of tradition yet relevantly livable.

Much of the city’s character is defined by its past, and has led to a great preservation that helps it carve out a unique identity of its own.

The First and Last American Furnace

One of the noteworthy sites in the city is Sloss Furnaces. A 32-acre plant that produced pig iron for almost a century beginning in the late 1800s, it was deemed a National Historical Landmark in 1981.

Created in 1880 by one of the founders of Birmingham, Colonel James Withers Sloss, the city’s first blast furnace produced 24,000 tons of iron during its first year of operation.

After retiring, Sloss sold the company to investors, which led to its reorganization and expansion. Before its last blast in the 1970s, the furnaces was still know as one of the largest sellers of pig iron in the world.

It is now an urban industrial museum and showplace dedicated to iron art. The site often hosts conferences and events, many of which are dedicated to metalworking. It is the only blast furnace in the United States that has been restored for the public, adding to its cultural importance.

Confederate Steel

There are also the Tannehill Ironworks, once a complex that produced iron for the Confederate military during the Civil War. As well as its status as a Historical State Park, it also hosts the Alabama Iron and Steel Museum.

Tannehill was seized during Union General James Wilson’s raid, and destroyed in 1865, but later partially reassembled so as to keep a small furnace operating until 1867. After other rebuilding attempts, Tannehill was abandoned until it was turned into a facility for visitors to view the Confederate war effort.

The museum is meant to represent the state’s antebellum and Civil War heritage, showing that while the city’s industrial golden era may be behind it now, the trade still remains a vital part of its heritage.

Steel Mythology

The city is also the home of the largest cast steel statue in the United States. The colossal statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forges, was designed by Italian artist Giuseppe Moretti and cast from local steel in 1904. It has overlooked Birmingham since the 1930s, sitting atop Red Mountain, and visible from almost any point of the city.

Vulcan was originally intended by city leaders to advertise Birmingham and the state of Alabama to the world through the St. Louis World’s Fair, held in the year of the statue’s unveiling. It proved to be an extremely popular exhibit, winning the Grand Prize and medals for the sculptor and foundry.

Eventually, Vulcan was moved back home, where the Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped get a new park and museum ready for him. He is considered one of the most significant landmarks of the city, and acts as a symbol of Birmingham’s industry-rich past.

Rooted in Steel

Besides being a city rich with American history, Birmingham has also become a modern metropolis in its own right. In recent times, new businesses have thrived, and new cultural institutions are sprouting up all throughout the city.

Right now, downtown Birmingham is developing fast, with a 58 percent increase among 24-to-35 year olds settling in between 2010 and 2014. And understandably so – tech and startup hubs, a vibrant music scene and the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s presence in the medicine and healthcare fields are making the area a burgeoning location.

Birmingham has changed a lot through the years, but it has not forgotten its roots. While it is not completely fueled by a steel economy anymore, the Steel City is still a remarkable destination for anyone interested in the country’s industrial past – and provides an interesting glimpse into the South’s revivification.

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The guitar, arguably the world’s favorite instrument, is also a stringed instrument that uses these mechanisms. Before the guitar developed into the beloved instrument that we now know though, it went through various transformations from different countries from the world, throughout the centuries.

A Strum through History

The sound of a string instrument is instantly recognizable. Having been played and enjoyed throughout history, strings have made some major influences on the evolution of music. Resemblances of the modern guitar for instance, have first been placed in the third millennium B.C. The tanbur, a four-stringed ancestor of the guitar, made its way through Mesopotamia and the Middle East, being adopted and slightly altered to fit different regions’ tastes in sound.

Moving into the Renaissance era, the lute, a pear-shaped and more advanced rendition of the tanbur, had a short neck and more strings. The lute’s influence on the Renaissance art movement is depicted in several paintings and stories, and is characterized as an essential element to that era’s social scene.

In the 17^th century, the Baroque guitar took center stage. At this time, the guitar was steering away from using animal gut as strings because the stress placed on the organic strings was causing the instrument to break down more frequently.

With the increasing popularity of the guitar came the need for a more durable construction. By the 1850s, steel-stringed guitars have become more widely used for their sturdiness alongside nylon stringed guitars.

The development of steel-string guitars can be credited to Christian Frederich Martin, a German guitar maker who apprenticed under the most renowned guitar artisans of his time. Predicting a change in the taste of music, Martin set sail for America where he opened up a guitar shop in Pennsylvania. By the 1920s, Martin’s steel-string guitars were in every guitar player’s hands, further developing the sounds that would continue to shape modern music.

While the United States was going through a music transformation like this, musicians were demanding louder, higher-quality instruments that could keep pace with the generation’s upbeat music.

Shaping Modern Music with Steel

As styles of music progressed to louder, faster beats, so did guitars that needed to be heard in larger venues. Even with steel strings, the basic acoustic guitar could no longer appease musicians who were experiencing a boom in popularity.

By the 1930s, the guitar received an electric upgrade. With the ability to be plugged into speakers in amplifiers, guitar musicians could once again compete with the loud sounds of brass instruments. By the 1950s and 60s, the electric guitar had become a pivotal instrument in rock and pop music, forever being immortalized by legends like Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles.

There are now several different materials that electric guitars use for their strings. Besides the well-known steel, there are strings made of cobalt and nickel, each delivering a unique tone to the emitted sound. The acoustic guitar however, still largely uses steel for its crisp and unforgettable sound.

This is because steel strings produce louder, sharper sounds that have more twang, making steel-string guitars the perfect choice for rocking out and creating a high-energy atmosphere. Another reason is that the steel string is much more resistant to heat than its nylon counterpart. Less heat and tighter winding equate to less maintenance and tuning required.

Capturing Hearts and Imaginations with Steel-String Guitars

It is almost impossible not to enjoy and appreciate legendary acoustic axeman like Robert Johnson, Michael Hedges and Django Reinhardt harmonically slap and fret their way through entrancing rifts.

Through completely different genres ranging from classical, flamenco, jazz and rock to many others, the steel-string guitar remains the top-choice to play for the best musicians. When you turn the radio on or listen to your favorite band, you will most certainly be hearing steel-string guitars.

Steel strings can also be found on other string instruments with varying sounds and uses for specific genres of music, like the ukulele, violin, harpsichord and bass. Steel strings will continue to be used for acoustic instruments for a long time until a better, stronger material that emits a cleaner, louder sound gets discovered.

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The forum, which was held for the first time this year, was designed for companies involved in social welfare activities to share information and to spread the culture of sharing. At the forum, POSCO-China received the plaque in appreciation of its activities giving back to local communities.

Out of the 10 companies that received the plaques, only two were non-Chinese companies. POSCO-China and Samsung China were selected, beating out leading international firms from the United States, Europe and Japan.

POSCO-China, as a regional affiliate of POSCO, has been active in helping the victims of earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters in China through the Red Cross Society, beginning with fundraising activities for victims of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

In addition, the company has been a regular contributor to a range of other social contribution activities in China, including fundraising for the preservation of local culture in Longjing, Jilin Province, a scholarship program and creating green space in Dawangjing Park in Beijing.

POSCO-China will continue to build its brand image as one that people can trust and proactively spread a culture of sharing through its various social contribution activities.

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Chain—Linking the Past to the Present

When we hear about chainmail, historically referred to as mail, it is easy to imagine medieval knights riding horseback through damp, grassy battlefields.

Mail has been used globally for centuries as an important piece of body armor that when worn, could be the difference between life and death. When it was first developed, mail was forged by connecting a series of small wrought iron rings. Later on, heat-treated steel became more widely used because of its improved durability.

Today, steel chainmail has many practical uses as protective clothing. Butchers, for example, wear steel chainmail coats and gloves to protect themselves while operating large knives and blades. Woodworkers also wear similar chainmail gloves to prevent accidents such as punctures and cuts.

In 1980, marine biologist Jeremiah S. Sullivan developed an armored wetsuit to protect divers against shark bites. The steel mesh suits were meant to deter sharks from wanting to take a bite out of the wearer, and have proven successful to an extent.

Modern “sharksuits” are developed by the company Neptunic, which utilize steel mesh to protect aquarium workers and underwater photographers. Much like the early medieval adaptations, these steel sharksuits carry a heavy price tag and limited mobility.

Protecting What Matters Most

In 1941, the United States made improvements to their military helmets using steel. The steel M1 helmet was designed to better protect American soldiers during World War II and by 1945, over 22 million M1 helmets were manufactured.

Each helmet was constructed from a single piece of Hadfield manganese steel, and was strong enough to stop a bullet. Because the helmets were constructed from durable steel, they took on many other uses as well. Soldiers found their helmets to be extremely effective entrenching tools, hammers, seats and occasionally, cooking pots.

The M1 helmet was so effective, that it only began to be phased out during the 1980s, seeing action in the Korean War, Vietnam War and other conflicts across the globe. While the United States has stopped issuing the M1 helmet, it is still widely used internationally, and is a highly sought-after item of collectors of military memorabilia.

These Boots are Made for Walking

Properly equipping workers in hazardous environments is crucial. Construction, mining, oil and gas, heavy metal fabrication, agriculture, forestry and manufacturing all offer many ways for workers to put themselves (and their feet) at risk on a daily basis. Dropping heavy equipment on a toe, or stepping on a sharp object that can pierce a foot are dangers that can be avoided with steel-toed boots.

Quality work boots are typically reinforced with a steel toe that, along with protecting against heavy falling objects, can also shield feet from other lurking dangers like chemical waste. Steel toe boots are a vital part of any industry worker’s outfit, and help to keep them injury-free each day.

Shielding Against Radiation

In addition to the many other ways steel can be utilized in protective clothing, it can also be used as a maternity shield. With the abundance of mobile devices, computers, cell towers and other radio frequency-emitting culprits, there is a threat of non-ionizing radiation that moms-to-be are rightfully concerned about.

Stainless steel fibers are being woven into maternity clothing, adding an extra layer of protection. The stainless steel fibers can be blended with other fabrics like cotton and polyester, forming fashionable and comfortable tops that reduce the risk of everyday radiation exposure. The metal fibers have been shown to shield more than 99 percent of electromagnetic waves, providing new moms with peace of mind.

Steel has been protecting humans from danger for centuries, becoming more versatile and extensive with its capabilities over time. With advancing technology, it will be fascinating to see the ways that steel will be used in future protective clothing, as it continues to keep us safe from head to toe.

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