The first blast furnace at Monlevade Works, based on charcoal,started up in 1937. Since then the route blast furnace-oxygensteelmaking has been used. In the course of the time,Monlevade Works ironmaking area went past some changesuntil reaching the present situation: one sinter plant and oneblast furnace based on coke. This blast furnace started up inDecember 1999 and its nominal capacity is 1,040,000 thm/year. This paper aims at showing the evolution of blast furnaceoperational performance, within a seven year operation whichallowed a production of 1,103,935 thm in 2006.

Transient ladle reactions in IF steel melts are simulatedexperimentally. It is found that when Al2O3 is thermodynamicallystable, Ti has the effect of modifying the inclusions as a resultof local super-saturation. When Al2TiO5 is stable, the inclusionmorphology appeared to change into smooth, non-facettedshapes. When Ti oxide is stable, the possibility of generatingsecondary inclusions during solidification was investigated.

A finite volume computer model of the continuous castingprocess for steel flat products has been developed. In this firststage, the model concentrates on the hydrodynamic aspectsof the process and in particular the dynamic behavior ofthe metal/slag interface. The model was validated againstexperimental measurements obtained in a water model apparatus.

CVC plus® is a worldwide established and well proventechnology package to control profile and flatness in hot stripmills and plate mills. Latest developments of this technologyare the application of CVC plus® grindings on work and backuprolls, CVC plus® grindings of higher order and intelligentshifting strategies. The capability of the developments isdemonstrated with recent operational results.

The crash performance improvements achieved by using PressHardened Steel (PHS) based laser welded blanks are reported.The interest of using a dedicated welding process to avoidexcessive AlSi coating dilution is discussed. In-use propertiesanalysis demonstrates the interest of this concept. Case studiesare performed on door-ring and rear rails to demonstratethe strong potential in terms of weight saving and crashperformance.