The Basics of iron and steelmaking

By Keith Walker*

Ironmaking and steelmaking have been around for a long time in various guises, and this has
meant that the terminology has grown up over many years. It can be confusing, with two or
more words or phrases which refer to the same thing. In addition, since the extraction of iron
from ore preceded steelmaking by many years, some terms can be vexing even to many
scientists. In this article, an attempt at clarification is made.

It is worth starting with the basic words. What does 'iron' mean? For a start, it is an element in
the periodic table with the symbol Fe which arises from its Latin name ferrum and hence the
more familiar term ferrous. However, except for technical people, this can be largely
forgotten when considering the iron and steel industry. This is because when iron is extracted
from iron ore it is never pure and contains other elements.

It is worth mentioning that, unlike gold and copper for example, iron reacts readily with oxygen
and so is never found as metal nuggets on the earth (with the rare exception of iron meteorites
which are in fact an iron-nickel alloy), but occurs as a variety of different ores. Therefore, some
extraction process is always needed to obtain iron in its metallic form. Iron will also readily turn
back into ore by rusting, as readers will be aware, since this is its preferred state in nature.
For extraction, high temperatures are required, and so over many years people have developed
various furnaces to do this.

For many years, people could not achieve high enough temperatures to make iron in liquid form,
but instead the furnaces produced a solid mass which was a mixture of iron and slag. Such
furnaces are now only of historical interest and today most ironmaking furnaces produce liquid
iron the exception being the production of Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) in which natural gas,
reformed to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide, is used to react with the ore below its
melting point to form pellets of spongy iron. In some places mainly India, coal is used instead
of natural gas. However, by far the majority of iron is produced in the Blast Furnace which
produces molten iron and slag, the latter containing many of the impurities (gangue) which were
present in the ore. In 2010, 1105 million tonnes (Mt) of iron were produced of which 1034Mt
(93.5%) was made in blast furnaces.

It is important to understand that although the blast furnace is the source of liquid iron, this is
not pure iron. Various terms are used to describe its output, amongst which are simply 'iron', 'hot
metal' and 'pig iron'. They are the same thing. This liquid iron has high levels of impurities, the
main one being carbon, which is commonly around 4.5%. This is refined, by removal of the
impurities, to make steel.

This in itself is confusing. Steel is commonly referred to as an alloy of iron and carbon, rather
implying that carbon is added to iron, and yet in modern production steel is actually made by
removing carbon from the iron produced by the blast furnace.

Oxygen steelmaking
Moving on to steelmaking processes, the first thing is to mention that there are two basic ways
of making steel. So far, we have considered how iron is extracted from its ore, principally using
the blast furnace. Steel producing sites which use blast furnaces, which make iron which is
refined into steel, are termed 'integrated sites'. They most commonly use Basic Oxygen Furnaces
(BOF) to turn the iron into steel. The liquid iron from the blast furnaces is taken to the BOF shop
where pure oxygen is blown into the iron at supersonic speed through a lance positioned in the
mouth of the BOF and this removes the carbon and other impurities. Burnt lime and certain
other 'fluxes' are added to the BOF to make a liquid slag which will absorb the impurities and so
keep them separate from the steel.

There are many variations in the detail of the BOF but they are all broadly the same. Alternative
names refer to the same thing, the most common being 'oxygen steelmaking', 'oxygen converter'
(it converts iron into steel), 'LD converter' where the LD today refers to the two Austrian plants
 The Basics of iron and steelmaking
By Keith Walker*

where the process was developed, Linz & Donawitz, although originally it stood for Linzer
Dsenverfahren ie Linz Lance Process. 'Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS)' and even 'vessel' are
other terms commonly employed, the basic referring to the type of lining in the vessel which
has to be alkaline (basic) in nature when treating iron made from ores containing phosphorus.
The important thing is that integrated sites make liquid iron from ore and turn it into steel.

A point which commonly confuses is that all the heating energy in the BOF comes from the
oxygen burning off the impurities, mainly carbon. There is no other source of heating in the
vessel. The carbon is burned off producing carbon monoxide, which can be collected and used as
a fuel to re-heat steel in the rolling mills.

Electric steelmaking
The other method of steelmaking is by using electric arc furnaces (EAF). This type of furnace
takes steel scrap, DRI, HBI (hot briquetted iron which is compacted DRI) or pig iron, which are
solid to start with, and melts them to produce steel. Some steelmakers use all three, some may
also add hot metal from the blast furnace, but the most common feedstock is steel scrap. In the
EAF, electricity provides the power to melt the feedstock, although many furnaces also use
oxygen, carbon and hydrocarbon fuels to accelerate the process. Although there is some removal
of impurities during EAF steelmaking, there is not the need for the removal of a lot of carbon as
in the BOF process.

Whether a company uses integrated sites or EAF depends on the economics, the location or,
quite commonly, history. It will be apparent to the reader that at the start of steelmaking there
was clearly little scrap available and today it remains the case that it is not even nearly possible
to meet world demand for steel by using only scrap melting some extraction of iron from ore is
a continued requirement. This is illustrated by 2010 production figures which show that globally,
70% of crude steel production was by the BOF and 29% by the EAF (the remainder was by the
obsolescent Open Hearth Furnace, also known as Siemens-Martin process, used mainly in CIS
countries).

Secondary steelmaking
Technically, steel produced by either the integrated route or the EAF route is the same apart
from minor differences which are important only in special grades. The processes become a
little different at the 'secondary steelmaking' stages, also known as 'ladle metallurgy'. This takes
place after the crude steel is tapped (poured) from the BOF or EAF into a ladle typically
containing anything from 50 to 300 tonnes. It is during this tapping operation that many of the
alloys are added to make a composition which meets the steel grade specification. These alloys
are also called 'finishings'.

A ladle is a refractory-lined, open container used to transport the liquid steel for casting.
Depending on the grades of steel being made, different secondary steelmaking processes are
used. The selection of these processes is decided mainly by the properties required although
some alternatives are decided by economics. All of the processes treat the steel at a station
located between the BOF or EAF and casting of the molten metal.

One of the most commonly installed secondary steelmaking plants is the Ladle Arc Furnace
(LAF), also known as the Ladle Metallurgical Furnace (LMF) or simply ladle furnace (LF). This
differs from an EAF in that it does not melt steel but rather maintains the temperature of the
molten steel in the ladle or heats it up before casting. This requires much less electrical power.
It has high value from an operational standpoint because it permits holding of the steel in the
ladle which would otherwise go cold and cause problems with casting. In this sense, it is often
regarded as a good way of de-coupling the BOF or EAF from the casters, in terms of scheduling
steelmaking operations. This can increase the capacity of a melting shop.
 The Basics of iron and steelmaking
By Keith Walker*

An alternative way of keeping steel hot is to use oxidation of aluminium and such plant is called
a CAS-OB (Composition Adjustment System with Oxygen Blowing). Less capital is needed than for
an LAF but its use is restricted to steel grades with high Al contents. Therefore, it is most
commonly installed in plants which primarily make flat rolled steel as strip rather than long
products such as bar and sections.

Hydrogen which is dissolved in the steel can cause cracking problems in products such as plates,
rails and special steels and so its removal during steelmaking is essential. Various 'degassers' are
available to do this. They all operate by sealing the liquid steel under a vacuum to withdraw the
hydrogen. One of the most common is the RH (Ruhrstahl-Heraeus) degasser. This is a unit in
which the steel is made to circulate inside a vacuum chamber which is lowered into the ladle. A
similar but less-common unit is the DH Dortmond-Horder) degasser. A simpler unit, requiring less
capital, is a Tank Degasser, which is a vacuum chamber into which the ladle is entirely enclosed.
However, treatment times are higher than in the RH and DH. Tank degassers can also be used to
achieve very low sulphur contents along with low nitrogen contents for special plate steel
grades.

Because the steel is not heated during degassing there can be problems with temperature
control. Some plants have installed combined LAF and degasser units to prevent this and these
are VAD (Vacuum Arc Degasser) units.

Commonly installed alongside LAF units is so-called 'lance injection'. This allows blowing of alloys
and refining powders deep into the liquid steel through hollow refractory lances using a selected
gas. The most common purpose is to achieve a very low sulphur content for special steel grades
in a short space of time.

Casting
Once the steel is prepared it is ready for casting. Traditional ingots moulds are still used for
some special purposes, but today the most common plant is the 'continuous casting' plant (often
also called 'concast' for short). In either case, the steel is 'teemed' though valves in the bottom
of the ladle, which can control its flow rate. For ingots, the steel is teemed directly into
separate moulds, commonly mounted on train wagons. However, in continuous casting the steel
is teemed into a 'tundish'. This is a little like a long ladle and its function is to distribute the
liquid steel into the moulds of the continuous casting machine, again through valves in its
bottom.

Concast machines may have only one or two moulds if slab is being cast for rolling to flat strip,
but as many as 8 if billet or bloom of square, rectangular or round cross section is cast for rolling
to long products such as bar or beams. Once casting is started, the machine can cast steel for as
long as required. It emerges from the mould as a 'strand' of steel which is guided downwards and
cut off at the required length. It is possible to cast many ladles of steel without stopping the
caster as the tundish acts as a reservoir of steel allowing an empty ladle to be removed and
replaced with a full one without interruption. This is known as 'sequence' casting.

On some plants, the cast steel can be charged to the re-heating furnaces in the rolling mill
whilst still hot and this saves energy this is often called 'hot connect'. Most commonly, it is cold
when charged because the logistics of hot connect present difficulties.

Rolling
Apart from heavy plate mills, in which the steel passes back and forth through a 'reversing mill',
most rolling mills are in-line. The hot steel passes consecutively through many sets of rolls called
'stands' and mills can be more than a kilometre in length. Products which have shaped cross
sections (eg beams, rail and bar) are achieved by progressively rolling the steel through shaped
grooves in the rolls, whereas for strip (commonly called Hot Rolled Coil or HRC), plates and coil
plate no grooves are necessary.
 The Basics of iron and steelmaking
By Keith Walker*

Products like rail, sections and heavy plate are rolled in long lengths and then cut to the
required length and cooled. Products such as coil plate, strip, bar and rod are usually coiled up
at the end of rolling.

Some strip products are rolled again when cold. This can achieve improved thickness (gauge)
precision and steel properties, and the product is referred to as Cold Rolled or CR.

Coating
Many products are coated once rolled. Galvanising gives the steel a coating of zinc and is
perhaps best known for its corrosion resistance. The zinc can be added either by immersing the
steel in liquid zinc (the product is then often called 'Hot Dip Galv' or HDG) or by eletro-plating
(electro zinc or EZ). Similar processes can product 'tinplate', commonly used for food containers
and which have an electroplated thin coating of tin. Today, strip products are increasingly
coated with organics, either plastics or paint. Such coatings are robust enough to allow
fabrication into finished goods without damaging the coating.

Tube & Pipe

Steel pipe and tube are special cases. So-called 'seamless' tubes are drawn from billets in a hot
process and are distinct from other tubes which are made by bending plate or strip and welding
the join, either longitudinally or in a spiral - the welding is evident as a 'seam'.

* About the author

Dr Walker was formerly with Corus Group and is now MD of the steel consultancy SteelFolk
Email keith.walker@steelfolk.co.uk