ALLOY
A substance that has metallic properties and is composed of two or more chemical elements of which at least one is a metal.

ALLOY SCRAP
Scrap steel that contains one or more alloying metals, such as nickel, chromium, tungsten, molybdenum. Such scrap must be very carefully classified according to composition and kept separate from other kinds of scrap.

ALLOY STEEL
"Steel is classified as alloy when the maximum of the range given for the content of alloying elements exceeds one or more of the following: manganese, 1.65 pct; silicon, 0.60 pct; copper, 0.60 pct; or in which a definite range or a definite minimum quantity of any of the following elements is specified or required within the limits of the recognized field of constructional alloy steels; aluminum, boron, chromium, up to 3.99 pct, cobalt, columbium, molybdenum, nickel, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, zirconium, or any other alloying element added to obtain a desired alloying effect."

ALLOYING ELEMENTS
Chemical elements added for improving the properties of the finished products. Chief alloying elements in medium alloy steels are: nickel, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, silicon, copper.

ANNEALING
A heat treatment process that restores steel to its formability after it has been cold rolled for purposes of customer application.

BASIC OXYGEN FURNACE
Refines molten iron into steel of required composition through a process of blowing pure oxygen into molten metal to eliminate impurities by oxidation.

BATCH ANNEALING
Restores the ductility lost during cold reduction. Coils are heated to specified temperatures under a controlled atmosphere. Oils deposited during the cold reduction process are burned away.

BESSEMER PROCESS
A very old process for making steel by blowing air under pressure through molten pig iron contained in a suitable vessel, whereby a portion of the iron, most of the silicon and manganese and practically all the carbon are eliminated by oxidation.

BILLET
A semi-finished piece of steel that has resulted from rolling an ingot or a bloom. It may be square, but is never more than twice as wide as thick. Its cross-sectional area is usually not more than 36 sq. in.

BLAST FURNACE
Sinter, coke, iron pellets, scrap, and limestone are charged into the top of the furnaces. A hot blast is blown in through tuyeres at a lower part to burn, coke, which acts as fuel to reduce iron ore into molten iron. Limestone absorbs impurities in the iron and is tapped off in the form of slag.

BLAST FURNACE GAS
Blast furnace operations generate large quantities of hot, dirty gas. The gas is funneled through the furnace top and directed down to equipment that cools and cleans it. The gas is then suitable for burning in the stoves and steam boilers.

BLOOM
A semi-finished piece of steel, resulting from the rolling or forging of an ingot. A bloom is square or no more than twice as wide as thick and usually not less than 36-sq. in. in cross- sectional area.

BLOOMING MILL
Blooming or slabbing mills roll the ingots into slabs or round bars, ready to be made into finished products. This is an old process replaced by continuous casting.

BOTTLE CARS
Large refractory-lined railroad tank cars that receive molten iron produced in a blast furnace. The bottle cars transport molten iron to steelmaking operations.

BRIQUETTES
Made from recycled waste material containing 60% iron. Briquettes are dumped into the blast furnace along with iron ore pellets, limestone, and coke to make molten iron.

BY-PRODUCTS
Volatile materials from the coking process are sent to a by-products plant where several materials are produced. These include coke oven gas, tar, ammonium sulphate, sodium phenolate, and light oil that contain benzene, xylene, and toluene.

CARBON STEEL
Steel which owes its properties chiefly to various percentages of carbon without substantial amounts of other alloying elements; also known as straight carbon steel, or plain carbon steel. Steel is classified as carbon steel when no minimum content of elements other than carbon is specified or required to obtain a desired alloying effect; when the specified minimum for copper does not exceed 0.40 pot; or the maximum content for the following does not exceed the percentages noted: Manganese, 1.65; silicon, 0.60; copper, 0.60.

CASTING
(1) A term applied to the act of pouring molten metal into a mold.
(2) The metal object produced by such pouring.

COKE
The fuel for the iron smelting process. Coke is processed coal that does not form a sticky mass when heated. It burns inside and outside simultaneously, and is mechanically strong enough to support the raw material weight of a blast furnace.

COKE OVEN
Coal is baked to become coke. The coke is used as a fuel to melt down and smelt iron bearing materials, and pellets in the blast furnace.

COLD MILL
Through pickling, tandem mill rolling, annealing, and temper mill rolling operations, hot-rolled steel strip is cleaned, reduced into thinner gauge, made more formable, and finished to meet requirements.

COLD ROLLED PRODUCTS
Flat-rolled products which have been finished by rolling the piece without heating (at approximately room temperature).

COMPUTERIZED MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMMS)
A system that includes a computer for tracking maintenance activities, which consists of planned and unplanned systems of doing work.

CONTINUOUS ANNEALING LINE
Provides a process to clean and anneal a steel strip to provide consistent physical properties.

CONTINUOUS CASTER
Casts molten steel continuously into slabs, bypassing conventional ingot making and primary rolling processes.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
A customer-driven process whereby the customer must be satisfied.

CONTINUOUS PICKLING LINE
Removes oxides from the steel surface which are deposited on the strip during the hot rolling operation. The oxide is removed by passing the steel strip through a bath of hot hydrochloric acid. The steel is then given a water spray rinse and passed through a hot air dryer prior to coiling with an oil coating to protect the surface.

COOPERATIVE PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
An agreement signed whereby management and labor enter into a working partnership that extends from the plant operations all the way to the executive offices.

CUSTOMER
A person or organization to which you or your work group provides goods or services, either internal or external to your business.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Fulfillment of customers needs or wants.

ELECTRIC ARC FURNACE (EAF)
A method of steelmaking in which steel scrap is melted in a furnace as an electric arc discharges from electrodes. Lime is added as a fluxing agent to absorb impurities. Depending on the steel type being made, alloys are added as required.

ELECTROGALVANIZING LINE
The process whereby steel strip is made corrosion resistant through application of a protective zinc or iron/zinc coating.

ELECTROL'YTIC CLEANING LINE
Removes oils deposited during cold reduction.

FINISH
In the steel industry, refers to the type of surface condition desired or existing in the finished product.

FINISHING
The act of dissolving materials in molten, purified metal for the purpose of changing its composition to that which is called for in the steel order. Also, the shaping-up of the melt without additions.

FINISHING MATERIALS
Any material which may be added to purified molten metal in the latter stages of producing a heat of steel; i.e., for modifying its chemical composition.

FLAT SHEET
Sheet rolled as pieces of convenient size and then flattened or leveled, usually by stretching. This operation may produce properties slightly different from those of coiled sheet.

GALVALUME
An aluminum-zinc coated product with superior corrosion resistant properties intended for use in pre-engineered metal building panels and in construction and automotive applications.

GALVANIZING
The process of applying a coating of zinc to the finished cold-reduced sheet or to fabricated parts made from strip products. The coating is applied by hot dipping or electrolytic deposition.

GALVANNEALED
An extra tight coat of galvanizing metal (zinc) applied to a soft steel sheet, after which the sheet is passed through an oven at about 1200o F. The resulting coat is dull gray without spangle especially suited for subsequent painting.

HIGH STRENGTH STEEL
Low alloy steels forming a specific class in which enhanced mechanical properties and, in most cases, good resistance to atmospheric corrosion are obtained by the incorporation of moderate proportions of one or more alloying elements other than carbon. The preferred terminology is now "high-strength, low-alloy steels."

HOT ROLLED
Hot rolled products are those products that are rolled to finish at temperatures above the re-crystallization temperature.

HOT STRIP MILL
Reheated slabs are rolled through a series of roughing and finishing mill stands to become coils.

INGOT
Steel formerly in a molten state, transferred to an ingot mold to solidify.

INGOT MOLD
A mold in which ingots are cast. Molds may be circular, square, or rectangular in shape, with walls of various thicknesses. Some molds are of larger cross section at the bottom; others are larger at the top.

INTEGRATED STEEL PRODUCERS
Companies that make steel from scratch instead of by melting scrap.

IRON
Primarily the name of a metallic element. In the steel industry, iron is the name of the product of a blast furnace containing 92 to 94 pct iron. Other names for blast furnace iron are pig iron and hot metal.

IRON ORE
The first step in any integrated steelmaking process is the smelting of iron ore. For this, raw materials are needed in the form of limestone, iron ore, and coke. Iron ore contains the iron that is released in the blast furnaces.

IRON SCRAP
Blast furnace metal or other iron, which may be salvaged by re-melting in a blast furnace or in a steelmaking furnace.

LADLE
A large vessel into which molten metal or molten slag is received and handled. Molten metal may be transported short distances by carrying it in a ladle.

LADLE ANALYSIS
The term applied to the chemical analysis representative of a heat or blow of steel and is the analysis reported to the purchaser. It is determined by analyzing, (for such elements as have been specified) a test sample obtained from the first part or middle part of the heat or blow during the pouring of the steel from a ladle.

LADLE METALLURGY FACILITY
Eliminates impurities from molten steel and adds alloy ingredients to make high-grade steel for specified processes.

LIMESTONE
A fluxing agent in the iron smelting process. It absorbs impurities in the molten iron to form a substance called slag.

METALLURGY
The science which deals with the extraction of metals from their ores and the adaptation and application of these metals to the uses for which they are intended.

MOLD
A form or cavity into which molten metal is poured to produce a desired shape.

OPEN HEARTH
A furnace for melting metal, in which the bath is heated by the convection of hot gases over the surface of the metal and by radiation from the roof. The name "open hearth" comes from the fact that the pool of molten metal covered with slag lies on the hearth of the furnace exposed to a sweep of flames. This is an old process that was replaced by the basic oxygen furnace.

PICKLING
The process of chemically removing oxides and scale from the steel's surface by running the strip through a bath of acid. At the end of the pickling process, the strip is coiled, banded, and coated with rust preventive.

PIG IRON
Iron produced by reduction of iron ore in the blast furnace.

PULVERIZED COAL INJECTION
Pulverized coal is injected through tuyeres at the lower part of the blast furnace where it becomes part of the fuel burden to reduce iron ore into molten iron. The pulverized coal reduces the usage of more costly coke and natural gas.

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
To make a product, process or services measurably better with respect to the expectations and requirements of a customer.

ROLL FORMING
(1) An operation used in forming sheet. Strips of sheet are passed between rolls of definite settings that bend the sheet progressively into structural members of various contours, sometimes called "molded sections."
(2) A process of coiling sheet into open cylinders.

SCALE
An oxide of iron that forms on the surface of hot steel. Sometimes it forms in large sheets that fall off when the steel is rolled.

SCARFING
In some cases, before steel slabs can be hot rolled, they require an additional process called "scarfing," which removes minor surface imperfections of a slab and which is critical for some customer orders.

SCRAP
Iron or steel discard, or cuttings, or junk metal, which can be reprocessed.

SCRAPPING
The act of discarding a piece of steel or of cutting it into sizes convenient for handling as scrap.

SECONDARY PRODUCTS
Those products that for any reason are not prime quality but which are still good for some applications.

SHEAR
In a steel mill, a machine for cutting steel products. There are many kinds of shears, but the general principle is the same as that used for shearing cloth or paper - the work is held upon a lower blade and an upper blade is thrust down, severing the piece. Steel shears may be classified: as to kind of drive - hydraulic and electric; as to the work done - cropping, squaring, slab, bloom, billet, bar shears; as to type of mechanism - rotary, rocking, gate, guillotine, alligator shears; as to movement of work while shearing - flying shears.

SINTER
In blast furnace usage, lumpy material that has been prepared from flue dust. Heating it to a high temperature agglomerates the dust. Sinter contains valuable amounts of combined iron.

SINTER PLANT
Fine iron particles are agglomerated, and sintered into round balls for use in a basic furnace.

SLAB
A semi-finished block of steel cut from the strand of a continuous casting machine. With earlier technology, slabs were rolled from ingots.

SLABBING MILL
A mill that rolls ingots into slab shapes. This is an old process replaced by continuous casting.

SLAG
A product resulting from the action of a flux on the nonmetallic constituents of a processed ore, or on the oxidized metallic constituents that are undesirable. Usually slag consists of combinations of acid oxides with basic oxides, and neutral oxides are added to aid fusibility.

SMELTING
A metallurgical thermal processing operation in which the metal or matte is separated in fused form from nonmetallic materials or other undesired metals with which it is associated.

SOAK
To hold an ingot, slab, bloom, billet or other piece of steel in a hot chamber or pit to secure uniform temperature throughout. The term is used in connection with heating of steel whether for forging or rolling or for heat treatment.

SOAKING PIT
A furnace or pit for the heating of ingots of steel to make their temperature uniform throughout.

STRONGBARN
"Strongbarn" is a tough galvanized product that is used in the agricultural market. "Strongbarn" is a corrugated, but not painted product.

STRONGPANEL
"Strongpanel" is a non-corrugated product that is available in both galvanized and painted. "Strongpanel" serves the light commercial and agricultural market, is available in thirteen colors, and is considered the "Cadillac" of building products.

TANDEM MILL
A mill with a number of stands in succession which reduces steel thickness.

TEMPER MILL
Produces a slight reduction in thickness as compared to a tandem mill however, it also improves flatness, produces a desired surface finish, alters mechanical properties, or reduces the tendency of the sheet to flute during fabrication.

TENSILE STRENGTH
The value obtained by dividing the maximum load observed during tensile straining until breakage occurs by the specimen cross-sectional area before straining. Also called "ultimate strength."

TURBOBLOWERS
Giant fans that generate wind that is blasted through the blast furnace stoves and injected into the blast furnace. This hot air fans the coke, which burns and; reduces the ore from oxides of iron to metallic iron. This molten iron falls to the furnace bottom, forms a pool, and is drawn off at certain intervals.

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