| Alloy steel | Steel with one or more specific elements added to create special properties. |
| Annealing | The process of controlled heating and cooling to soften steel. |
| Bar | Steel shapes up to 75mm in diameter produced in
straight lengths, such as rounds, squares, hexagons,
angles, channels, flats, T-bar or reinforcing bar. |
| Billet | A 12m long semi-finished steel shape, produced from a caster or rolled from a bloom. |
| Blast furnace | A huge oven or furnace (up to 100 metres) which operates
continuously to produce iron. It is so-called because of the air blasts that are part of the ironmaking process. |
| Bloom | A steel shape, the product of continuous casting, varying in
dimension. Usually about 630mm by 400mm and 5-6m in
length. |
| BOS vessel | A furnace where blasts of oxygen are used to transform iron into steel. |
| Carbon steel | Iron with less than 1% carbon content, making the metal
hard but not brittle. |
| Casting | The process of pouring molten metal into a mould so that
the cooled, solid metal retains the shape of the mould. |
| Charging | Feeding the furnace with raw materials. |
| Coke ovens | A series of tall, gas fired, air-tight brick ovens (called a battery) in which coal is baked in the absence of air to create metallurgical coke. |
| Continuous casting | Continuous forming of semi-finished steel,
eg. slabs, blooms and billets, direct from molten steel. |
| Conveyor | Equipment which transports raw materials to the top of
the blast furnace. A variety of conveyors transport steel coils from one manufacturing process to the next. |
| Drawing | Pulling steel shapes through tapered dies to produce wire. |
| Dummy bar | A metal bar used to close the bottom of the mould in the
casting machine. |
| Electric arc furnace | A furnace that uses electric power to melt scrap steel to
produce new steel. |
| Flux | Limestone or other materials used to collect impurities
in the iron and steelmaking processes. |
| Integrated steelworks | Works that house all major production phases, from raw
materials (iron ore and coke) to rolled steel. |
| Galvanise | The coating of iron or steel with zinc to protect it from rust. |
| Ladle | A 'bucket' lined with refractory (heat resistant) bricks,
used to transport molten steel from process to process
in a steel plant. |
| Lance | A long metallic tube through which oxygen is blown into
the BOS vessel under high pressure. |
| Pellets | Fine particles of iron ore mixed with bonding clay and
roasted into hard round balls for blast furnace feed. |
| Pickling | Use of hot acid solution to remove oxides and scale from
steel to ensure good surface quality in cold rolling and in other manufacturing processes. |
| Plate | Flat rolled steel product more than 3mm thick. |
| PVC steel | Sheet steel coated with plastic, used in whitegoods
manufacture such as washing machines and refrigerators. |
| Refractories | Heat resistant materials, often bricks, that are used as the linings of furnaces and ladles. |
| Rod | Round steel bar, ranging from 5.5mm to 12.7mm diameter,
produced in coils. Used as feed for wire mills. |
| Roll-forming | Rolling coated steel into different profiles for roofing, cladding, metal decking or fences. |
| Scrap steel | Recycled steel such as cropped ends of semi-finished
steel products, steel damaged in production, and old steel
goods such as cars, refrigerators, etc. |
| Slab | A semi-finished steel shape measuring 230mm by 1m
by 12m long, produced in a continuous caster. |
| Slag | A by-product of iron and steelmaking, largely composed of
limestone. It is solidified and used in soil mix, road surfaces
and cement. |
| Sheet and strip | Flat rolled steel product less than 3mm thick. |
| Sinter | Fine particles of iron ore, coke and limestone, fused into
lumps for use as blast furnace feed |
| Stainless steel | An alloy steel containing chromium, nickel and molybdenum.
It is rust resistant and is used in kitchens and laundries. |
| Stand | An arrangement of rolls through which steel is passed to
alter its shape. A mill may consist of one or more stands. |
| Tapping | Running off molten steel from the taphole in a furnace or vessel. |
| Torpedo ladles | Huge oval-shaped vessels that transport molten iron to the steelmaking area. |
| Tuyeres | Nozzles arranged in a ring around the base of the blast furnace, through which air blasts are injected. (Pron: twee-yers.) |
Print this Page
Email this Page