Elizabeth Sturges, a student at Ohio State University, has interned for two strong, yet very different companies.

In the summer of 2016, she worked in R&D at AFS Corporate Member Ford Meter Box (Wabash, Indiana), focused on water system components. In the summer of 2017 she experienced a shift into multi-acre steel mill ArcelorMittal (East Chicago, Indiana), where she worked with continuous casting instead of green sand casting. At ArcelorMittal, she worked in the quality department as an associate engineer—metallurgical intern.

“I had such a fun time working in East Chicago and felt that my projects really impacted the quality department,” she said.

Her first main project was updating the mill limits managing system for the coating line by cross-referencing past orders with various processing capabilities. By updating this system, less communication was needed between corporate and local quality, which allowed the customers to have confirmation on their orders several days sooner. This project yielded increased market-share as well as better comprehension of casting capabilities across departments.

Her second major contribution was creating a surface roughness database of all coated products to answer customer inquiries. She got to spend some time in both the mill and the lab compiling these roughness values, and then also investigated why certain roughnesses were seen.

“I had so many wonderful and varied hands-on experiences this summer and knew that my work made a difference to the company,” she said. “Both of my internships have given me abundant insight into the casting industry, and I have formed some great friendships along the way.”

Sturges will be graduating in May with a degree in materials science and engineering. She was awarded a 2018 FEF Internship Scholarship.   

College Connection is a new recurring feature that will run in Modern Casting highlighting the metalcasting programs and students at FEF schools.

Click here to see this story as it appears in the April 2018 issue of Modern Casting