On May 4–6, CIVS staff and students delivered a variety of technical presentations at AISTech 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. AISTech is the premier annual international iron and steel technology conference and exposition, attracting more than 9,000 attendees from around the world. CIVS contributions included 10 technical presentations, 2 undergraduate oral presentations, and 13 graduate poster presentations covering topics related to blast furnaces, electric arc furnaces, ladles, reheating furnaces, casting, and safety.

Congratulations to CIVS staff and students for receiving various awards:

• 2026 Ladle Best Paper
• CIVS Sr. Research Engineer Kyle Toth was presented for serving his term as Chair of the Safety Committee
• CIVS undergraduate student Anna Eshenbaugh received 2^nd place in the undergraduate oral competition for the presentation titled “Evaluating Coke Oven Gas as a Recycled Fuel Source for Steel Reheating Furnaces”
• CIVS Ph.D. student Shiyu Wang received 1^st place in the graduate poster competition for the project titled “CFD Modeling of the DC Electric Arc for Improved EAF Electrode Efficiency”
• CIVS graduate research assistant Calvin Mahida received 3^rd place in the graduate student poster competition for the project titled “Impacts of Misaligned Submerged Entry Nozzle on Flow in a Thin-Slab Continuous Caster Mold”
• CIVS graduate research assistants Nadeem Jaffer Mohammed and Abdul Mateen Mohammed were awarded a $1,000 winner in the AIST Real Steel video competition for their video titled “Green Steel: From Research to Real”

The following is a list of CIVS presentations:

• Technical Papers
  • Integrated Virtual Reheat Furnace for Education and Optimization of the Process— Kyle Toth, John Moreland, Rohit Kumar Reddy Kovvuri, Armin Silaen, Nicholas J Walla, Preshita Jaiswal, Kevin Kondrat, Jim Ward, Bernard Chukwulebe, Kurt Johnson, Chenn Zhou
  • Evaluating Reheating Furnace Retrofits for Dual-Fuel Methane/Hydrogen Operation— Nicholas J. Walla, Prasanth P Nair, Armin K. Silaen, Rafat Hirmiz, Joe Maiolo, Kevin Kondrat, Chenn Q. Zhou
  • Thermo-mechanical Stress Analysis in the Secondary Cooling Zone of Twin-Slab Caster— Dianzhi Meng, Armin K. Silaen, Rudolf Moravec, Chenn Zhou
  • CFD Modeling of Supersonic Jet Impingement on Molten Bath during Electric Arc Furnace Refining— Jacob Schulman, Orlando Ugarte, Tyamo Okosun, Eugene Pretorius, Joe Maiolo and Chenn Zhou
  • Development of Trialing Image Detection for a Melt Shop Safety Tool— Kyle Toth, Jay Polra, Dhwanil Chauhan, Yang Ni, Chenn Zhou, Conrad Fisher, Garrett Page
  • Numerical Investigation of the Effect of Snorkel Diameter on Mixing Efficiency in an RH Degasser— Nihal Saji, Kiranchandru Lingeswaran, Xipeng Guo, Nicholas J. Walla, Rudolf Moravec, Chenn Zhou
  • On the Influence of Steel-Slag Interaction on EAF Refining Performance — Orlando Ugarte, Shishir Aryal, Tyamo Okosun, Eugene Pretorius, Joe Maiolo, and Chenn Zhou
  • Impacts of Misaligned Submerged Entry Nozzle on Flow in a Thin-Slab Continuous Caster Mold— Calvin J Mahida, Dianzhi Meng, Armin K. Silaen, Patrick Lueckenhoff, Chenn Zhou
  • Case Study of Developing a Crane Simulator for Hot Metal Handling at the BOF— Rohit Kumar Reddy Kovvuri, Kyle Toth, John Moreland, Chenn Zhou, Jeffery Maxfield
  • Influence of Radical Species on Blended Gas Combustion in the Blast Furnace Raceway— Tyamo Okosun, Samuel E. Nielson, Lucas Melton, Chenn Zhou

• Undergraduate Student Oral Competition
  • Evaluating Coke Oven Gas as a Recycled Fuel Source for Steel Reheating Furnaces – Anna Eshenbaugh
  • Supersonic O2 Injection in EAF Molten Bath— Alex Huttinger
• Graduate Student Poster Competition
  • Digital Twin: Multi-View Visualization of Thermal Profiles in a Continuous Casting Process – Aakanksha Trivedi
  • CFD Validation of Iron Ore Reduction with H-Plasma in a Lab Scale Setup – Abdul Mateen Mohammed
  • Impacts of Misaligned Submerged Entry Nozzle on Flow in a Thin-Slab Continuous Caster Mold – Calvin Mahida
  • A Multi-Agent AI System for Workplace Incident Reporting and Analysis – Dhwanil Chauhan
  • Dynamic Safety Zone Monitoring using Multi-Camera Vision-Based Spatial Reasoning – Jay Polra
  • CFD Evaluation of H2 Injection in Blast Furnaces: Raceway Modeling, Injection Limits, and CO₂ Reduction – Mohammadhossein Alimohammadi
  • Numerical Investigation of Mixing Dynamics in an Industrial Scale RH Degasser: Influence of Snorkel Position – Nihal Saji
  • CFD Analysis of Reduced Oxygen Injection on Decarburization and FeO Formation in EAF Refining – Shishir Aryal
  • CFD Modeling of Supersonic Jet Impingement on Molten Bath During Electric Arc Furnace Refining – Jacob Schulman
  • Thermo-mechanical Stress Analysis in the Secondary Cooling Zone of Twin-Slab Caster – Dianzhi Meng
  • Impact of AI-Driven Silicon Prediction on Blast Furnace Thermal Stability and Sustainability – Ghaayathri Devi Kannan
  • CFD Modeling of the DC Electric Arc for Improved EAF Electrode Efficiency – Shiyu Wang
  • Integrated Virtual Blast Furnace (IVBF) Software – Preshita Jaiswal

AISTech is North America’s largest annual iron and steel technology conference and exposition. It provides a global perspective on today’s marketplace by featuring technologies from all over the world that help steelmakers to compete more effectively. AISTech is hosted by The Association for Iron & Steel Technology. AISTech 2025, held in Nashville, TN from May 5-8, 2025, attracted over 8,000 steel professionals from 40 countries.

The conference and exhibition, the largest annual iron and steel event in North America, also had over 700 exhibitors. The Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) is a non-profit organization with over 18,500 members from over 70 countries. AIST represents a large network of steel industry professionals with tremendous knowledge and expertise.

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