WEST CHESTER, OH--(Marketwired - May 15, 2017) - AK Steel (NYSE: AKS) said today that one of the company's employees and five co-authors in association with Purdue University Northwest's Center for Innovation Through Visualization and Simulation (CIVS) received the Association for Iron & Steel Technology's (AIST) Hunt-Kelly Outstanding Paper Award - First Place. 

Stuart J. Street, AK Steel Technical Manager and co-authors received the award for their paper "Investigation of Co-Injection of Natural Gas and Pulverized Coal in a Blast Furnace." The paper investigated a new concept for blast furnace operations that has the potential to increase efficiency and productivity, while reducing operating costs.

"I'm proud to congratulate Stuart for this honor from AIST," said Roger K. Newport, Chief Executive Officer of AK Steel. "This work reflects the company's continued focus on innovation, including steel manufacturing processes that enhance our operating efficiency to position us to serve the needs of our customers today and for the future."

The Hunt-Kelly Outstanding Paper Award - First Place is the highest award given by AIST to a technical paper for excellence, originality, relevance to the technology of the iron and steel industry, and for the advancement of engineering and operating practice in the steel industry. The authors were nominated for this award as the recipients of the 2016 Josef S. Kapitan Award - Ironmaking from AIST, and also won recognition from AIST for a follow-up study.

Dr. Street joined AK Steel in 2001 as a Senior Metallurgical Process Engineer in the Dearborn Works (Michigan) primary operations. He has held technical roles supporting the Dearborn Works Blast Furnace including the Blast Furnace Reline Project and as a Continuous Improvement Manager. Dr. Street holds a Bachelor of Engineering, Masters of Engineering and a PhD, each in Materials Engineering, from the University of Wollongong, Australia.

CIVS
AK Steel is a member of the Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium, which is operated by CIVS. Further information about CIVS is available at https://centers.pnw.edu/civs/.

AK Steel
AK Steel is a leading producer of flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products, and carbon and stainless tubular products, primarily for automotive, infrastructure and manufacturing, electrical power generation and distribution markets. Headquartered in West Chester, Ohio (Greater Cincinnati), the company employs approximately 8,500 men and women at eight steel plants, two coke plants and two tube manufacturing plants across six states (Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and one tube plant in Mexico. Additional information about AK Steel is available at www.aksteel.com.