Brussels: The World Steel Association (worldsteel) announced today the winners of the fifth steeluniversity.org Challenge.

The industry category winner was a team from DragonSteel/China Steel Corporation of Taiwan, China and the runner-up was a team from China's Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation. The winner and the runner-up in the student category were both from China's Wuhan University of Science and Technology.

The Challenge was held online on 27 January 2010 over a single 24 hour period. The task was to process an order of steel plate for a yellow goods application (construction and agricultural equipment), using the steeluniversity.org website's secondary steelmaking and plate rolling simulations. The team successfully producing the order at the lowest cost/tonne within the allotted time frame was declared the winner.

This year's competition attracted more than 43,000 attempts from 645 teams representing 25 different countries. 453 teams successfully completed the task, using a steel grade specially defined for this event.

Commenting on the results Ian Christmas, Director General of the World Steel Association, said: "Initiated in 2005, the Challenge is a global competition that attracts a growing number of students and new employees in the steel industry. We are very pleased to see the nearly 300% jump in the number of attempts this year. This is evidence that steeluniversity.org is an extraordinary tool for training the next generation of steelmakers to develop their knowledge and skill to higher levels."