CHAPTER 1

PRODUCTION OF IRON AND STEELS

1.1 INTRODUCTION:-
•Steel is one of the world’s most essential
materials. It is fundamental to every aspect of
our lives, from infrastructure and transport to
the humble tinplated steel can that preserves
food.
•With steel, we can create huge buildings or
tiny parts for precision instruments. It is
strong, versatile and infinitely recyclable.
•By the early 20th century, steel was king, the
metal at the heart of the modern world.
 CHAPTER 1
PRODUCTION OF IRON AND STEELS
1.1 INTRODUCTION:-
•The present age civilization is largely dependent
upon iron and steel for its numerous activities. Up to
the invention of the blast furnace method for the
production of iron, this material was not in much
use.
•The development of refining methods such
as the Bessemer process and open-hearth
process has provided us with a very useful
alloy of iron and carbon i.e steel which
contains up to 2% of carbon. Alloys of iron
and carbon with more than 2% of carbon are
known as cast iron.
 Chapter 1
• Pure iron is almost impossible to obtain in
nature. However iron is widely distributed in
combination with non-metallic elements.
Available iron ores with 20 to 70% iron
content form about 0.01% of the total iron in
the crust of earth.
• The richest iron ore, Magnetite, Fe3 O4
contains about 65% iron, Hematite (Fe3O3)
contains about 50 -60% iron. Brown
hematite or hydrated oxides have an iron
content of about 35%, while carbonate ores
have a still lower iron content i.e about 30%.
 Chapter 1
• Blast furnace iron may be made into castings
either by melting it (grey variety) in a cupola
or by melting it (white pig iron) in an air
furnace.
• These white castings may be further heated
(annealing) to produce malleable castings.
• Pig iron produced in the blast furnace may
also be refined to wrought iron by the
paddling process.
• Wrought iron may be further treated to
produce cast steel or made into cemented
bars to produce what is known as shear steel.
 Chapter 1
1.3 Manufacture of pig iron: Pig iron is produced
from the iron ore in the blast furnace. ( Fig 1.21)
•The iron ore, coke and lime stone mixture are
fed into the furnace, through a double bell
and cone arrangement.
•The charge comes down slowly. It is melted
on reaching the lower position of the furnace.
•Molten iron is tapped through the tap hole
and slag thro’ cinder notch from time to time.
 Chapter 1
The following reactions take place:
•CO reacts with Fe2O3 producing heat according to the
following two possible reactions.
•Fe2O3+3CO 2Fe +3CO2+11.7 Kilocalories of heat.
•2Fe2O3+8CO 4Fe+7CO2+C+64.9 Kilocalories of heat
•Mostly the second reaction takes place and more of heat is
produced.
•CO reacts with Fe2O3 producing heat according to the
following two possible reactions.
•Fe2O3+3CO 2Fe +3CO2+11.7 Kilocalories of heat.
•2Fe2O3+8CO 4Fe+7CO2+C+64.9 Kilocalories of heat
•Mostly the second reaction takes place and more of heat is
produced.
 Chapter 1

•A lump of iron ore entering the top of the

furnace is heated to about 370 0 C, the CO
gas diffuses into it to start reduction and
deposit carbon.
•Temperature of ore increases on descending.
After descending two thirds of the furnace
height the temperature rises to about 925 0 C,
but only about one fourth of oxygen has been
removed from the ore.
 Chapter 1
• Limestone is disassociated into lime and CO2
according to the following equation.
CaCo3 CaO+CO2
• The coke only becomes hotter and does not
change too much.
• The most important reaction takes place when the
charge reaches the tuyeres, in the lower one third
portion of the furnace.
• The gas has more of CO and the temperature is
higher. Therefore most of Fe2O3 is reduced to FeO.
• A considerable amount is reduced to the malleable
iron.
• However the last of oxide can not be reduced
because of reversing action of CO2 present.
 Chapter 1
• This reduction is accomplished by the carbon
deposited already, according to the reaction of
reversing action of CO2 present.
• C+ FeO Fe +CO + 39.3 kilocalories of heat
• As heat is absorbed in this reaction, complete
reduction can take place only at a high
temperature.
• The hearth of the blast furnace is filled with molten
iron and slag in about four to six hours time.
• These are occasionally drawn out through holes
provided for them. The molten iron is either cast
into pigs or taken to the steel making furnace in
the molten state.
• Slag may be also thrown away as a waste material
or may be used either in making roads or in the
cement making industry.
• 1.4 Manufacture of steel: The process of steel
manufacture consists of taking pig iron from the blast
furnace and refining it by oxidation, to reduce the
percentage of carbon.
• Scrap steel may also be used as a part of the charge.
The oxidation process is accomplished in the open
hearth process, Bessemer converter or the electric
furnace.
• In early open hearth and Bessemer processes fire
clay lining, high in silica was used and as a result,
acidic slags were produced.
• Sulphur and phosphorous could not be eliminated
because of this. Their percentage in the final product
could be kept low only by proper selection of raw
materials. The basic process had to be developed to
overcome this difficulty. Lime was added to the slag
to make it basic. In order to prevent corrosion by slag,
the lining should also be made from a basic material.
 Chapter 1
• The process of steel making is known as
the Acid process or Basic process
according to the nature of the lining and
the slag.
• Mostly basic open hearth and acid
Bessemer processes are used.
• The electric furnace is used mostly as a
finishing process only for adding alloying
elements etc.,
• Usually basic lining is used in it, although
acidic lining is, also, sometimes
 Chapter 1
• 1.5 Blast furnace description: The blast furnace is
a hollow steel shaft, which is lined on the inside by
means of refractory fire bricks (Fig 1.21).
• The furnace is full of charge of iron ore, coke and
flux (usually lime stone). Molten pig iron and slag
are produced in the process.
• In the blast furnace, function of the flux is to
convert the gangue into a fusible form, so that it
may be separated from molten iron.
• In order to make the slag fusible, there must be
proper balance between the acidic constituents,
silica and secondarily alumina and basic
constituents, lime and secondarily magnesia.
• Slag roughly consists of 50% acidic and 50% basic
constituents but it varies in accordance with the
ore used and the quality of iron to be produced.
 Fig 1.21 Blast furnace Ore+ coke +lime
Gas

Hopper
Bell

Top
Refractory Wearing plates

lining

Waste Bosh cooler

Inwell
Water thro’ plates
Finer verch

Bustle pipe
Tuyeres Bosh C.I.Column
hearth

Bottom
Drain pipe
 Chapter 1
• For the combustion of coke, air is blown into the
furnace through nozzles, known as tuyeres.
• The tuyeres are cooled by means of water. This air is
previously heated to a temperature of about 540 0 C
in the hot fire brick work stoves.
• These stoves are heated by the gas produced in the
blast furnace and escaping at its top.
• 1.6 Basic Bessemer Process: Modern steel making
industry is about one hundred and fifty years old.
• It began with the introduction of Bessemer process.
• It was acid process which was in use until recently for
pre-refining molten iron for basic open hearth furnace.
The Thomas process-the basic version of Bessemer
produced steel on large scale till the Second World
War.
 Chapter 1
• In this process molten pig iron is held in a vessel with
perforated bottom called a converter.
• Cold air or oxygen enriched blast is forced through the
metal from below as shown in Fig1.3
• Refining is complete in about 15-20 minutes and
taking account the time required for charging, tapping,
repairs etc., a tap-to-tap time of about 30-35 minutes
are required. This is a auto-geneous process i.e no
external heat is needed.
• The exothermic chemical reactions during refining
provide the necessary heat in order to maintain the
metal well above its melting point ,in spite of the fact
that ,cold air is blown through.
 NOSE

CONVERTER
SHELL
REFRACTORY
LINING
BATH

TUYERES

BOTTOM
AIR WIND BOX

Fig 1.3 BASIC

BESSEMER/THOMAS CONVERTER
 Chapter 1
• Although Bessemer process is very fast it can
not be adopted widely because of its rigorous
requirements of pig iron composition and also
because of the poor quality of the product.
• Soon after the Bessemer process was
commercially adopted open hearth process
became available and it was adopted widely
because of its better quality product and its
versatility with respect to charge material
composition.
• The Bessemer blast is also enriched with
oxygen to improve the quality of the product.
 Chapter 1
• 1.7 Open hearth furnace: It is illustrated in Fig 1.4.
• It can hold a charge of about 200 tons at a time.
Some furnaces have a hearth which can be tilted,
instead of a fixed one.
• The hearth is heated by preheated gaseous fuel.
The gas and air are preheated in the regenerators
(brick checker work) below the furnace. A
temperature of about 1650 0C is maintained in the
furnace.
• The charge consists of pig iron, iron ore (to
oxidize the carbon and silicon of pig iron) and lime
stone (to give a basic slag). Basic steel may also
be added.
• At first, for about two hours, scrap steel, iron ore
and lime stone are heated. Molten pig iron is, then,
added.
Dead magnesite Magnesite
brick

Silica
bricks

Checker
Concrete
bricks

Fig 1.4 Basic open hearth furnace

 Chapter 1
• The iron ore reacts with pig iron to oxidize
its silicon, manganese and carbon,
phosphorous and sulphur are also oxidized
and pass into the slag.
• However some sulphur is introduced from
the ore and the lime stone and its overall
contents do not change materially.
• The charge boils and foams because of CO
produced. Iron ore is added from time to
time and more of carbon is oxidized.
• When carbon content is lowered to the
proper level, the molten metal is tapped into
ladle. Acidic open hearth furnace has a
silica lining.
 Chapter 1
• After being tapped into the ladle, molten
spiegeleisen (a pig iron manufactured from iron
with high manganese content) is added to the
steel.
• This helps in the removal of dissolved oxides from
the steel as they spoil the steel.
• These days, crushed ferromanganese with 80%
Mn, ferrosilicon with 50% Si and charcoal in paper
bags are thrown into the ladle.
• The reaction takes a few minutes and slag rises to
the surface. The steel is poured into moulds,
through a hole in the bottom of the ladle, to form
ingots.
 Chapter 1
• 1.8 Steel making by LD process:
• The name LD stands for Linz and Donawitz where the
process was born.
• Coincidently it also stands for nozzle process of Professor
Durer .
• The refining of iron by oxygen lancing was first tried by
Prof.R. Durer in Switzerland
• The charge materials: The charge consists of molten metal,
cold pig iron ,steel scrap, lime/limestone, dolomite,
fluorspar , bauxite, iron ore, mill scale, gaseous oxygen
etc.,
• The vessel in which refining is carried out in a LD process
is nearly similar in shape to the Bessemer converter .
• It is either referred to as a LD vessel, a LD converter or a
basic oxygen furnace (BOF for short).
• The eccentric shape is adopted for the vessel because of
the following reasons:
 Chapter 1
• 1. The slag as well as metal removal is easy
• 2. The gases, ejections etc., come one side and
regular cleaning of only that side is needed
• 3. The construction of hood and insertion of lance
is easy
• 4. The lance is protected and controlled in a better
way since hood is inclined
• Oxygen gas-the refining agent-is fed to the furnace
through a water cooled lance.
• The lance is nearly 8-10 meter long and its
diameter varies with furnace capacity in the range
of 20 -25 cm.
• It is necessary that the supersonic jet issuing from
the nozzle of a lance in a L.D process should
penetrate the bath adequately and that the area of
its impact on the bath should be maximum.
 Chapter 1
• These conditions are essential chiefly for
efficient refining, i.e. for decarburization as
well as dephophorisation.
• Oxygen is generally blown at 8-10
atmospheres pressure through a laval
shaped nozzle so that the jet issuing at the
nozzle exit is supersonic and generally has
a velocity between 1.5 to 2.5 times the
velocity of sound.
• The characteristics of a supersonic jet, as
emerging from a laval nozzle and impinging
on the liquid metal bath are shown in Fig.1.5
 oxygen

Lance
nozzle

Characteristic supersonic core

Jet

Fully expanded jet

Emergent
jet

Molten metal

FIG.1.5 THE EFFECT OF SUPERSONIC JET ON BATH CIRCULATION.

THE BATH CIRCULATES OUTWARDS ON THE SURFACE AND UPWARDS ON THE
VESSEL AXIS. THE CHARACTERISTIC SUPERSONIC CORE IS ALSO SHOWN.
 Chapter 1
• Lance life is determined by usually by the life of
the nozzle. Failures of lance may be due to faulty
cooling, manufacturing defects, internal
stresses ,differential expansion of tip and steel
tube etc., although as high as 5000 heats have
been claimed to be made by the same lance. The
usual life does not exceed a few hundred heats.
• 1.9 Electric furnace processes of steel making:
• They dominate steel making particularly for
conversion of scrap into steel, or for medium and
high alloy steel making. Generally a three
electrode arc furnace as shown in Fig. 1.6 is used.
 Chapter 1
• The steel making temperature is maintained by an electric
arc struck between the electrodes and the metallic charge.
• This process is very similar to open hearth in charging and
refining and several hours are needed for one heat.
• This is the only process wherein either oxidizing or
reducing conditions can be maintained at will during
refining since the furnace does not possess its own
ambient oxidizing atmosphere.
• The high cost of electrical energy in general makes this
process costly.
• It is well suited for making alloy steels.
• It usually runs on cold charges and the furnace is of small
capacity.
• The modern electric arc furnaces are however of much
bigger sizes and some of them also take hot metal as part
of the charge.
 ELECTRODES

ROOF

SHELL WALL
SHELL
SPOUT LINING
DOOR

BOTTOM

Fig. 1.6 ELECTRIC ARC FURNACE

 Chapter 1
• 1.10 KALDO:
• The furnace is quite similar to that of LD
converter in design and it is kept inclined at
an angle of about 200 as shown in Fig 1.7.
• During refining the converter is rotated
around its own axis at any desired speed up
to a maximum of 30 RPM.
• The oxygen lance is also inclined to the
horizontal and the angle is adjustable. The
refining cycle is a little longer than that of
L.D i.e 60-70 minutes.
 O2

LANCE
ROTATION

20 0 LINING

SHELL

METAL

Fig.1.7 KALDO VESSEL

 Chapter 1
• 1.11 Hybrid Blowing:
• The difficulties and problems faced in
refining by top blowing as in LD process
and also in bottom blowing as in OBM
process have recently led to the
development of a successful blowing
strategy in a combined form, that is from the
top and bottom simultaneously as shown in
Fig .1.8.
• This is known as combined blowing process
which may be the process of near future for
steel making.
 TOP LANCE OXYGEN+LIME

EMULSION JET

BATH AGITATION
GAS

Fig .1.8 HYBRID BLOWING VESSEL

 Chapter 1
• 1.12 CARBON STEELS
• The largest tonnage of steel produced annually is
carbon steel.
• According to the American Iron and Steel Institute,
steel is considered to be carbon steel when no
minimum content is specified or guaranteed for
aluminum, chromium, columbium, molybdenum,
nickel, titanium, tungsten, vanadium or zirconium;
• when the minimum for copper does not exceed
0.04 per cent; or
• when the maximum content specified or
guaranteed for any of the following elements does
not exceed the percentages noted: manganese
1.65, silicon 0.60, copper 0.60.
 Chapter 1
• Carbon steels are those in which carbon
plays the predominant role in the
determination of properties.
• Carbon steels are sometimes called plain
carbon or straight carbon steels.
• 1.12.1 Low carbon steels:
• The carbon content varies from 0.08 to 0.35
percent carbon.
• Low carbon steel is probably produced in
the largest tonnage of all steel products.
• Most low carbon steel is consumed by the
construction industry.
 Chapter 1
• The structural members of
buildings ,bridges ,locomotives ,railroad cars,
ships and automobile frames are made of low
carbon steel.
• It is used for ship’s hulls, large pipes , storage
tanks, piling. It is used as galvanized steel sheet
and automobile body steel.
• Refrigerators, air conditioners and similar home
appliances are responsible for appreciable
consumption of low carbon steel sheet. This class
of steel is used for fencing wire and in
considerable tonnage as cold finished and hot
finished bars.
 Chapter 1
Medium carbon steels: are the steels
containing between 0.35 and 0.5 per cent
carbon .
• Steels containing this much carbon is
capable of being through hardened by the
formation of martensite if the section size
is small perhaps up to 12.7 mm.
• Medium carbon steel is used for forgings
and high strength steel castings.
• Examples of forgings are turbine bucket
wheels, shafts, pinions and main
reduction gears, steering arms, railroad
axles and crankshafts
 Chapter 1
High carbon steels: contain more than 0.50
percent carbon.
• Carbon contents as high as these, will
almost insure that the steel will be heat
treated for improvement of properties.
• High carbon steel is used for forgings
such as railroad wheels and wrenches.
• Important hot rolled products are railroad
rails and some concrete reinforcing bars.
• High strength wire products such as piano
wire, stitching wire, suspension bridge
cables and springs are made of high
carbon steel.
 Chapter 1
• They are used for general purposes tools like
blanking dies, threading dies, tube drawing dies,
drills, reamers and taps, forming tools, hammers
and sledges, chisels, shear blades, knives and
planar tools and razors.
• Their high temperature hardness and strength are
poor. They are inferior to alloy steels for hot
forming of high speed cutting operations.
• The high carbon steels tend to deform during
hardening and this leads to distortion, warpage
and cracking of large and complex dies.
• Third, they are shallow hardening and hence at a
disadvantage with respect to deeper hardening
alloy steels.
 Chapter 1
• 1.13 STRENGTHENING OF STEELS: The yield
strengths of metals can be improved with varying
degree of response by one or more of four general
methods. These are (1) reduction of grain size (2)
work hardening (3) simple alloying and (4) heat
treating.
• 1.13.1 Reduction of grain size: The finer the grains
size of a metal the greater the strength.
• Grain size can be controlled in a number of ways.
One of the ways is to control the conditions of
solidification from a melt.
• If the metal is frozen rapidly it develops a fine
grain size. If the metal is frozen slowly, a coarse
grain size results.
 Chapter 1
• Grain size can also be controlled during
mechanical working operations or the
annealing operation which sometimes
follows working.
• The term mechanical working operations
mean the shaping of the metal by
mechanical means such as rolling or
forging.
 Chapter 1
• 1.13.2 Work hardening: The yield strength can be raised by
work or strain hardening.
• There are various methods of work hardening as shown in
Fig 1.14.2 .Other processes of work hardening are spinning
and swaging.
• In the spinning process, a rotating sheet is forced into a
rotating backing form with a tool.
• In the swaging process, a small die shaped hammers beat
on a rod to reduce it in diameter and shot peening in which
metal shot is thrown at the surface.
• In all these cases the part is strengthened by the cold
working. Another important effect is that the part is
hardened, making it more resistant to wear and galling.
• There is a loss of ductility and toughness when the metal
is permanently deformed.
 Chapter 1
• The effects of cold work can be eliminated by a
process called annealing which consists of
heating the cold worked metal to a suitable
temperature known as the annealing temperature.
• As a result of annealing, the elastic strength tends
to be lowered and toughness and ductility are
improved with respect to the cold work condition.
• The grain size after annealing primarily depends
upon the severity of cold working before
annealing.
• This principle of annealing is used to control grain
size, which in turn, can be used to adjust strength.
 (a)
(b)
Tension

Dies closed
Dies (c) (d)
open

Fig 1.13.2 Methods for work hardening during processing

(a)-cold rolling bar or sheet (b)-cold extrusion
(c) –cold forming, stamping, forging (d)-cold drawing
 Chapter 1
• 1.13.3 Simple alloying: When small amounts of
one metal are alloyed with large amounts of a base
metal, an improvement in strength of the base
metal often results. The properties of alloys are
affected by heat treating. In simple alloying, the
heat treating is excluded from consideration
• 1.13.4 Heat treating: A remarkable improvement in
strength can be achieved by heat treatment.
• Among the metals which show an astonishing
response to heat treatment are steels and to
somewhat lesser extent, aluminum.
• The hardness and strength of some typical steels
and aluminum base alloys are shown in Table
1.13.4
 Chapter 1
Soft condition After heat treatment
Steels T. S Y. S Elongation T.S Y. S Elongation
SAE 1045 639 367 20% 816 639 15%
MPa MPa MPa MPa
SAE1080 897 476 10% 578 1394 6%
MPa MPa MPa MPa
SAE4140 680 578 23% 139 1224 13%
MPa MPa MPa MPa
Aluminum
Alloys
2017s 176 68 20% 972 163 27%
MPa MPa MPa MPa
2024s 183 75 22% 462 326 19%
MPa MPa MPa MPa
7075s 224 102 16% 557 489 11%
MPa MPa MPa MPa

Table 1.13.4 Typical effects of heat treating steels and aluminum alloys
• 2.7 Tool and die steels:
• The addition of alloying elements such as chromium,
cobalt, manganese, molybdenum ,tungsten and
vanadium to plain carbon steels with a carbon content
between 0.7 percent and 1.5 percent makes tool and die
steels harder, more wear resistant, more shock
resistant,
• Less liable to shrink and
• Warp and better able to operate at high temperatures.
• Most of the alloying elements used in tool and die
steels are refractory metals with very high melting
points.
• They also form very hard stable carbides and having
body centered cubic crystal lattices, they limit the range
of temperatures over which austenite can exist, thus
stabilizing the ferrite and the hard tetragonal martensite