Nucor Corporation

Floor plates and methods of manufacturing floor plates are presented herein. The method including hot rolling a steel slab in one or more hot rolling passes into a steel coil or plate, annealing the steel coil or plate after the hot rolling into an annealed steel coil or plate, and cold rolling or temper rolling the annealed steel coil or plate into the floor plate in one or more cold rolling or temper rolling passes of a rolling apparatus, wherein the rolling apparatus includes a top roller and a bottom roller and is structured to achieve a desired lug pattern and height with a gauge reduction using either hot-rolled and/or annealed steel.

A joist assembly system that is structured for dynamic retrieval of components, dynamic and precise positioning and location of retrieved components, assembly of the components to form a joist, and delivery of the assembled joist. The joist assembly system has a plurality of material handling systems, a plurality of welding systems, and a rigging table system. The material handling systems are structured to load and position the components such as chords and webs onto the rigging table. The rigging table in turn supports the chords or webs. Subsequently, the plurality of welding systems weld the webs to the chords to form the joist.

The present disclosure is directed to direct smelting process for production of molten metal and slag. The process includes controlling, independently, introduction of a first solids feed and a second solids feed into a smelt reduction vessel (SRV), the first solids feed comprising a first sulfur level and the second solids feed comprising a second sulfur level different from the first sulfur level; adjusting the amount of the first solids feed relative to that of the second solids feed to provide a target sulfur content; controlling the target sulfur content introduction into the SRV; and reducing slag foaming and/or instability during metal smelting operation of the SRV. A direct smelting system for production of molten metal and slag is also disclosed.

A hot rolled, ultra-high strength, complex metallographic structured or multi-phase structured steel that improves formability during stamping or forming process, while possessing one or more of the following properties: excellent castability, rollability and coatability, excellent structural performance, excellent stretch formability, excellent stretch flangeability, excellent dent resistance, excellent durability, excellent impact performance, excellent intrusion and crash resistance without the purposeful addition of boron.

The present disclosure is directed to an improved direct smelting process for improving the efficiency of energy/heat recovery from hot smelter offgas for the purpose of steam raising and power generation. In examples, the formation of alkali sulfate accretions in the temperature range 500-1000° C. are removed by introducing a mechanical sweep-cleaning system to an offgas duct of the smelter. The sweep-cleaning system comprises at least one central rotating shaft with chains, with each chain optionally having an accretion-removal member at its distal end. When rotated, the chains lift and the accretion-removal member sweeps the walls of the duct to remove the accretions.

A twin roll casting system comprises counter-rotating casting rolls having a nip between the casting rolls and capable of delivering cast strip downwardly from the nip, a casting roll controller configured to adjust at least one process control setpoint between the casting rolls in response to control signals, a cast strip sensor capable of measuring at least one parameter of the cast strip, and a controller coupled to the cast strip sensor to receive cast strip measurement signals from the cast strip sensor and coupled to the casting roll controller to provide control signals to the casting roll controller, the controller comprising a reinforcement learning (RL) Agent. The RL Agent further comprises a model-free actor-critic agent having a value function and a policy function, the RL Agent having been trained on a plurality of casting system operation datasets composed of casting runs executed by a plurality of different human operators.

A twin roll casting system comprises a pair of counter-rotating casting rolls having a nip between the casting rolls and capable of delivering cast strip downwardly from the nip; a casting roll controller configured to adjust at least one process control setpoint between the casting rolls in response to control signals; a cast strip sensor capable of measuring at least one parameter of the cast strip; and a controller coupled to the cast strip sensor to receive cast strip measurement signals from the cast strip sensor and coupled to the casting roll controller to provide control signals to the casting roll controller. The controller comprises a reinforcement learning (RL) Agent, the RL Agent generating control signals for the casting roll controller in response to a reward function having a first term rewarding emulating human operation of the process control setpoint and a second term rewarding a short set-up time.

Systems and systems to generate clean energy and for providing hydrogen capture and carbon capture sequestration are provided. Heat from partial oxidation of hydrocarbon fuel is used to generate clean power via one or more heat engines together with hydrogen capture and carbon capture sequestration.

Systems and systems to generate clean energy and for providing hydrogen capture and carbon capture sequestration are provided. Hydrogen from partial combustion of hydrocarbon fuel in combination with full combustion of carbon from hydrocarbon fuel is used to generate clean power with hydrogen capture and carbon capture sequestration.

A joist assembly system that is structured for dynamic retrieval of components, dynamic and precise positioning and location of retrieved components, assembly of the components to form a joist, and delivery of the assembled joist. The joist assembly system has a plurality of material handling systems, a plurality of welding systems, and a rigging table system. The material handling systems are structured to load and position the components such as chords and webs onto the rigging table. The rigging table in turn supports the chords or webs. Subsequently, the plurality of welding systems weld the webs to the chords to form the joist.