Steel

What Is Steel?

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon containing less than 2% carbon and 1% manganese and small amounts of silicon, phosphorus, sulphur and oxygen. Steel is the most important engineering and construction material in the world. It is used in every aspect of our lives, from automotive manufacture to construction products, from steel toecaps for protective footwear to refrigerators and washing machines and from cargo ships to the finest scalpel for hospital surgery.

A British inventor called Henry Bessemer is generally credited with the invention of steel in 1856. He founded the Bessemer Steel Company in Sheffield, England, but up to 1859 the company made a loss. By the time the patent ran out in 1870 he had made more than 1 million pounds sterling. Steel is still produced using technology based upon the Bessemer Process of blowing air through molten pig iron to oxidise the material and separate impurities.

How Is Steel Made?

Steel is made via two basic routes - from raw materials - iron ore, limestone and coke by the blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace route or from scrap via the electric arc furnace (EAF) method. The raw material approach is known as the integrated route and about 60% of steel produced today is made by this method. The second technique is much easier and faster since it only requires scrap steel. Recycled steel is introduced into a furnace and re-melted along with some other additions to produce the end product. About 34% of steel produced in 2003 was produced via the EAF route.

What Is a Flat Steel Product?

A flat steel product is a plate product or a (hot or cold) rolled strip product. Typically steel is rolled between sets of rollers to produce the final thickness. Plate products vary in dimensions from 10 mm to 200 mm and thin flat rolled products from 1 mm to 10 mm. Plate products are used for ship building, construction, large diameter welded pipes and boiler applications. Thin flat products find end use applications in automotive body panels, domestic 'white goods' products, 'tin cans' and whole host of other products from office furniture to heart pacemakers.

What Is a Long Steel Product?

A long product is a rod, a bar or a section - typical rod products are the reinforcing rods for concrete, engineering products, gears, tools etc. are typical of bar products and sections are the large rolled steel joists (RSJ) that are used in building construction projects. Wire-drawn products and seamless pipes are also part of the long products group.

What Is A Mini-Mill?

A mini-mill is a molten steel producing process that feeds scrap steel into an electric arc furnace to re-process the material into finished steel for new applications. (See 'How is steel made?' above).

Where Is Steel Produced?

Steel is produced in more than 50 countries worldwide and on every continent except Antarctica.

How Much Steel Is Produced Worldwide?

In 2003, more than 960 million metric tonnes of steel was produced worldwide. The list outlined below provides the production statistics for a selection of other materials.

• Steel: 960 million metric tonnes (2003)
• Aluminium: 21.9 million metric tonnes (2002)
• Copper: 14.9 million metric tonnes (2002)
  
• Gold: 2,600 metric tonnes (2003)
  
• Portland Cement: 87.8 million metric tons (2000)
  
• Timber: 300 million m3 (2001)

Who Makes The Most Steel?

In 2003, China produced more than 220 million tons of crude steel making it the first country to exceed 200 million tons of crude steel in a year.

Who Use The Most Steel?

In 2002, China consumed 244 million tons of steel. Total vehicle production exceeding 4 million units and car production at 1.8 million units along with significant growth in other industrial sectors are contributing to the increasing steel consumption.