Steel Production

[koster]

Hello,

Could anyone help me by explaining what exactly the worker is doing in this photo of steel production? It's for an educational book (not about steel, but for language learning!)

http://www.corbisimages.com/Search#p=1&;q=I-663-0106

Thanks a lot!

[Buenchico]

It's a very long time since I was last inside a steel works but it looks like the furnace has just been tapped and the liquid steel has been poured into a channel. The steel towards the edges of the flow is cooler and therefore likely to start solidifying, leading to the channel becoming blocked. So it's that guy's job to break up any semi-solid steel in order to keep the flow running smoothly.