Glossary

The heat treatment process by which steel products are reheated to a suitable temperature in order to remove stresses resulting from previous processing and to soften them and/or improve their machinability and cold forming properties.

Long steel products that are rolled from billets. Merchant bar and reinforcing bar («rebar») are two common categories of bars, where merchants include rounds, flats, angles, squares, and channels that are used by fabricators to manufacture a wide variety of products such as furniture, stair railings, and farm equipment. Rebar is used to strengthen concrete structures.

A pear-shaped furnace, lined with refractory bricks, which refines molten pig iron from the blast furnace and scrap into steel. Scrap is charged into the furnace vessel, followed by the hot metal from the blast furnace. A lance is lowered from above, through which blows a high-pressure stream of oxygen to cause chemical reactions that separate impurities into fumes or slag.

A semi-finished steel product with a square cross section up to 150mm x 150mm. This product is either rolled or continuously cast and is further processed by rolling to produce finished long products. The range of semi-finished products above 150mm x 150mm are called blooms.

A furnace used in the integrated metallurgical process in which iron ore in the form of sinter is melted down under a hot air flow (enriched with oxygen), using coal in the form of coke as a heating and reducing agent in the chemical process. As a result, a liquid hot metal is produced, also called pig iron.

See «Billet».

Steel sheet coated by immersion in a bath of molten material (known as hot-dip) to protect the base metal (substrate) against corrosion. The most commonly used protective material is zinc. An organic coating (paint, plastic) can also be deposited on the layer of zinc. The zinc-coated steel is often referred to as «galvanised steel».

Steel that has been wound.

A fuel obtained by the pyrolysis of coal in coke ovens and used as a reducing agent for iron ore in the blast furnace.

Silicon steel in which magnetic properties are practically the same in any direction of magnetism in the plane of the material. It is used for motors, generators, transducers, and magnetic circuits of industrial machinery.

Sheet steel that has been run through a cold-rolling mill.

Equipment that reduces the thickness, or gauge, of flat steel products by rolling steel between alloy steel cylinders without prior reheating. Several roll passes are generally necessary to gradually reduce the steel to the desired thickness.

The process pursuant to which molten steel is cooled into semi-finished products such as billets, blooms and slabs. The molten steel is poured at a steady rate from a ladle into a bottomless mould. As the molten steel enters the water-cooled mould, it starts to cool into a pliable solid which can then be cut into required lengths.

A furnace which refines molten pig iron from the blast furnace and scrap into steel. In this process, the proportion of scrap used can be increased to 100% of the metal charge. Once the furnace is charged and covered, graphite electrodes are lowered through holes in the roof. The electric arc travelling between the electrodes and the metallic charge creates intense heat which melts the charge. Alloying elements can be added during the process.

A metal product commonly used as a raw material feed in steelmaking, usually containing iron and other metals that improve the physical and chemical properties of the final steel product.

Metals that consist primarily of iron.

A product that is produced by rolls with smooth surfaces and ranges of dimension, varying in thickness and width. The major flat steel product categories are (i) thin flat products (up to 4 mm in thickness), (ii) thick flat products (between 4 mm and 50 mm in thickness); and (iii) plates (over 50 mm in thickness). Flat products are used in the automotive and white goods industries, for production of large welded pipes, ship building, construction, major works and boilers. They include hot- and cold-rolled sheet, plates and coils.

see «Coated Steel».

A type of steel that provides many benefits over regular steel. It is much tougher and stronger than ordinary carbon based steel. It is used in cars, trucks, cranes, bridges and other structures that must be able to handle a lot of strain.

Steel rolled in a hot-rolling mill.

A process whereby solidified steel, preheated to a high temperature, is continuously rolled between rotating cylinders.

An intermediate product made by pouring molten steel into moulds of given dimensions. In further processing steps carried out in a cogging mill, the ingots are transformed first to simple shape semi-finished products like blooms or slabs and then fed to hot-rolling mills. Ingot casting is now largely replaced by continuous casting.

The process including all stages starting from raw coal and iron ore to rolling finished products at one site.

A sheet steel product with very low carbon levels used primarily in automotive deep-drawing applications. Interstitial Free Steel’s improved ductility (drawing ability) is made possible by vacuum degassing.

A furnace used for refining hot metal between the converter or electric arc furnaces and casting.

Long products are used in all industrial sectors, particularly in the construction and engineering industries. They include all types of bars, wire rod, and a wide range of cold-formed profiles like closed profile, S-shape profile, E-shape profile, trough-shape profile, angle profile and others. They also include pipes with circular, oblong and semi-oblong, square and rectangular cross sections of a wide range of sizes.

A broad, shallow hearth to refine pig iron and scrap into steel (also known as a «Martin furnace»). Heat is supplied from a large flame over the surface and the refining takes 7-9 hours.

Iron ore or limestone particles which are baked into little balls of a specified size in a balling drum and hardened by heat.

The process in which the surface of the steel is cleaned with acid to remove scale, rust and dirt, such process being preparation for further processing, such as cold-rolling, galvanising or polishing.

A stage in the process of making crude steel, during which most residual impurities are removed from the crude steel and additions of other metals may be made before it is cast (see also «Ladle furnace»).

A commodity-grade steel used to strengthen concrete in highway and building construction.

The stand of rollers used to reduce steel sheets or plates by passing the steel back and forth between the rollers; the gap between the rollers is reduced after each pass.

Iron containing material (mainly industrial or household waste) that generally is remelted and recast into new steel. The scrap could be used as part of a metal charge together with pig iron loaded into steel-melting furnaces.

Steel products such as billet, blooms and slabs. These products can be made by direct continuous casting of hot steel or by pouring the liquid steel into ingots, which are then hot-rolled into semi-finished products.

A common measure in the U.S., a short-ton is equal to 2,000 pounds, 907.18 kilograms or 0.907 metric tons («tones»).

Particles in roughly one-inch chunks produced by mixing and baking iron ore concentrate and limestone flux prior to loading it into the blast furnaces for reduction into pig iron.

A semi-finished steel product obtained by rolling ingots on a rolling mill or processed through a continuous caster and cut into various lengths. The slab has a rectangular cross section and is used as a starting material in the production process of flat products.

A by-product, containing inert materials, produced during the blast furnace smelting process and other steelmaking operations.

Cutting a sheet of steel into narrower strips.

Flat steel products used for production of pipes. Strips with widths of less than 600mm are used for large pipes with a spiral welded seam and smaller pipes with a straight-line welded seam. Large-diameter pipes (of up to 1,420mm diameter) with a straight-line welded seam require strips up to 4,600mm wide and 30mm thick.