United States Steel Corporation

the benefit of its customers, the public at large, its employes, and its stockholders,
U. S. Steel is continuously engaged in scientifically developing the
potentialities of this extraordinary metal - steel.
Integrated research
More than seventeen hundred scientists, engineers and supporting personnel
are directly engaged in research at U. S. Steel. Research activities are
coordinated with those of the engineering, metallurgical, production and
commercial departments. All these groups seek to provide the customer with
an existing steel or to develop a new one that will best suit his particular
needs. The research activities include scientific studies generating new knowledge
of the fundamental properties of steel, studies to make present steels
more useful, and studies to develop completely new steels. The creativity,
imagination and skills of all these people are augmented with the most modern
research tools ranging from the ordinary chemical and physical analytical
apparatus to small-scale production units capable of duplicating actual production
conditions and problems. The newest scientific instruments are
employed for rapid analysis of the chemical composition of steels. "Torture"
tools are used to bend, twist, strain and break samples of steel to assure its
suitability for the intended use by the customer.
Many of the significant design and engineering improvements made in
transportation, housing, roads, food handling and distributing methods owe
their success in good measure to the contributions of steel research. Such
research has also contributed to improved farming methods, to stronger
national defense, and to significant "breakthroughs" in space exploration.
Fundamental research
u. S. Steel's Research Center at Monroeville, Pennsylvania, has a separate
laboratory devoted exclusively to fundamental research. This process of
extending the boundaries of human knowledge requires precise investigation
of the structure of atoms, the arrangement of atoms into crystals and the
relationships between structure and the resultant strength and other properties.
The knowledge thus gained speeds the scientific development of new
and better steels.
The exactness required in investigating the fundamental properties of
metals is illustrated by the fact that certain properties are strongly influenced
by the presence of impurities of only one or two parts per million. Thus, for
experiments in which even minute impurities would affect the findings,
research must produce, through unique processes, extremely pure metals.
Steelmaking involves complex chemical reactions between gases, slags and
molten metals at high temperatures. Knowledge of the rate and manner in
which these reactions occur and of how they are altered by changes in temperature,
pressure and amounts of substances involved, leads to a greater
scientific understanding of existing processes and aids in the design of new
and better processes.
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