The Center for Industrial Research

In 1989 the TECHINT GROUP OF COMPANIES founded the nonprofit organization Fundación para el Desarrollo Tecnológico (FUDETEC), which houses the Center for Industrial Research (CINI) – the R&D center for the TECHINT steel industries.
CINI is located in Campana (Argentina), a city 80 km north of Buenos Aires.

Objetives

The objectives of CINI are:

To develop scientific and technological research supporting the steel companies of the TECHINT group in the fields of:

Development of new products and optimization of existing ones.
Development and optimization of production processes.

To provide research training to young engineers and scientists.

The central activities of CINI are developed in relation to the following steel companies:

Tubular products: The TENARIS GROUP (SIDERCA, SIAT and METALMECANICA in Argentina, DALMINE in Italy, TAMSA in Mexico, NKK-TUBES in Japan, ALGOMA-TUBES in Canada, CONFAB in Brazil)
Flat products: SIDERAR in Argentina and SIDOR in Venezuela

Organization

CINI has a matrix-type organization.
Regarding the areas of scientific expertise CINI is organized in four Departments and has also a specialized lab, as follows:

Materials & Corrosion Department
Computational Mechanics Department
Applied Physics Department
Mechanical Technology Department
Full Scale Testing Lab

Besides this departmental organization, CINI has structured three Technological Areas and each one coordinates the research activities that are focused on a given technology:

Steelmaking Technology Area
Furnace Technology Area
Mechanics of Tubular Products Area

The CINI staff comprises 62 persons (as of September 2002):

11 with doctoral degrees granted by universities in Argentina and abroad
University of Buenos Aires (Argentina), University of Mar del Plata (Argentina), University of El Litoral (Argentina), Balseiro Institute (Argentina), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.A.), Washington University (U.S.A.)
38 with university degrees in Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.
10 technicians
2 secretaries and 1 administrative employee.

FUDETEC Steering Board
Honorary President:	Dr. Roberto Rocca
President:	Dr. Leonardo Stazi
Vice-President:	Ing. Reinaldo Castilla
Members:	Ing. Gustavo Bauer Dr. Juan Carlos González Dr. Fernando Mozzi Ing. Walter Scomazzon
CINI General Director:	Eduardo N. Dvorkin, Ph.D.

Budget

The CINI annual budget results from ad hoc agreements between the research center and the industrial companies. Each agreement defines a research program.
CINI R&D programs are focused on the steel industry.

Operational Budgets:

July 1998 to June 1999	KUS$ 4,874
July 1999 to June 2000	KUS$ 3,870
July 2000 to June 2001	KUS$ 4,382
July 2001 to June 2002	KUS$ 4,337
July 2002 to June 2003	KUS$ 3,754

Capital investments at CINI:

July 1998 to June 1999	KUS$ 2,200	New building in Campana and metallurgical equipment (Gleeble, Scanning Electron Microscope, RX-Difractometer, etc.)
July 1999 to June 2000	KUS$ 210	Extension of new building
July 2000 to June 2001	KUS$ 660	New Full Scale Testing Lab
July 2001 to June 2002	KUS$ 345	New equipment for the Full Scale Testing Lab
July 2002 to June 2003	KUS$ 115	Improvements in the Full Scale Testing Lab

Graduate education and training of young engineers and scientists