Making and rolling steel

The processes behind conversion of iron ore into material that shapes the world

Contents
Making iron Making steel (BOS) Making steel (EAF) Secondary steelmaking Continuous casting Rolling mills Summary and glossary Recycling page 4 page 6 page 8 page 10 page 12 page 14 page 16 page 18
Cover picture: Gatesheads Millennium Bridge, the worlds first and only tilting bridge, was designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects and engineered by Gifford. The bridge spans the Tyne linking Gateshead with Newcastle via Gateshead Quays, and is the only pedestrian and cycle bridge over the river.
Picture: D Turner, Dreamstime.com

Steel: the stuff of life

Life as we know it today would be impossible without steel. Everything we buy has been made using machinery made with it, and transported on ships, lorries and aircraft made from it. Its in our beds, our kitchens, our cars, our clothing and the money in our pockets. Even the freshest, most organic farm produce grows on earth tilled with steel tools, and the electricity that lights our way and powers the 21st-century gadgets that fill our lives couldnt be generated without it and that includes all energy from renewable resources. Steel is the material of the 21st century. It is such an integral part of everything in the world around us that we take it for granted; never giving a moments thought to how rich red rock called iron ore is transAll structures great and small: Steel is our ever-present 21st-century servant, helping us to make electricity from the air (main picture), shaping city skylines with iconic structures like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (above) and putting money in our pockets, (left). British copper coins are made from steel plated with copper.

formed into a material that gives us the humble paper-clip, the exciting skylines of the worlds cities and everything in between. The publication describes the journey from stone to steel ...

Making and rolling steel: Ironmaking

Making iron
The life-cycle of steel begins with the release of the iron from its ore in a blast furnace. Molten iron tapped from the blast furnace is the raw material used to create steel with the properties to be formed into anything from a staple to a supertanker
A chemical bond between iron and oxygen forms iron ore, and the ore with the highest concentration of iron comes to the UK from South America and Australia. Shipped to Britain in bulk carriers through deep-water harbours, it is blended to create a consistent feedstock for the ironmaking process. Some of the blended ore is mixed with small pieces of coke and heated to form an ironrich clinker called sinter. Sintering is an important part of the overall process; it reduces waste and provides an efficient raw material for ironmaking in the Blast Furnace. Coke is produced at the works from carefully selected grades of coal, which is also imported, since the right qualities are not available in the UK. Different grades of coal are carefully blended, again for consistency, before transfer to batteries of coke ovens. Each separate oven chamber holds a charge of up to 30 tonnes of coal. The coal is heated in sealed ovens to drive off unwanted materials. After about 15 hours coke remains, and is removed from the oven, cooled and graded before use in the Blast Furnace. The coal gas produced during cabonisation is used as a fuel in elsewhere in the process, and by-products such as tar, benzole and sulphur are extracted for further refining. Coke ore and sinter are fed, or charged, into the top of the Blast Furnace, together with limestone. A hot air blast, from which the furnace gets its name, is injected through nozzles called tuyeres around the base of the furnace. The blast air may be oxygen enriched, while coal and/or oil are usually also injected to provide additional fuel and reduce coke requirements. The blast fans the heat in the furnace to white-hot intensity and the iron in the iron ore and sinter is melted to form a pool of molten metal in the bottom, or hearth, of the furnace. The limestone com-

This page: The Number 5 blast furnace at the Corus Port Talbot works.

Blast Furnace

Bleeders

Charge - iron ore and coke

Furnace gas to cleaning plant

bines with impurities and molten rock from the iron ore and sinter, forming a liquid slag which, being less dense than the metal, floats on top of it. The charging system at the top of the furnace also acts as a valve mechanism to prevent the escape of gas, which is captured for re-use as fuel elsewhere in the process. An important feature of ironmaking is that the process is continuous. When a sufficient quantity of molten iron has accumulated in the hearth it is tapped off into ladles for steelmaking. The slag is skimmed off the iron runner by means of dams and weir arrangement during tapping. Meanwhile, the raw materials continue to be charged into the top of the furnace, and heated air blasted in at the bottom. After tapping, the molten iron is 90-95 per cent pure, and is known simply in the industry as hot metal has some impurities which will vary according to the quality of the original iron ore and coking coal, but the most important of these, from the steelmakers point of view, are carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, manganese and silicon. Iron from the blast furnace contains 4/4.5 per cent carbon, and is therefore brittle and unsuitable for forging or rolling into other products, although it is used for castings, where its rigidity and machinability are important. Most iron, however, is produced for processing into steel.

Charging mechanism Distribution chute

Water-cooled refactory lining

Bustle main Hot air blast Tuyeres Slag Tap hole Torpedo ladle

A hot air blast, from which the furnace gets its name, is injected through nozzles called tuyeres at its base

Making and rolling steel: Steelmaking

A basic oxygen steelmaking plant control room.

Making steel: BOS process

The Basic Oxygen process is the major method of making steel. Modern furnaces, or converters, will take a charge of up to 350 tonnes at a time and convert it into steel in little more than 15 minutes
Two processes; thousands of products
In steel production the hot metal from the Blast Furnace, steel scrap, or a mixture of both, forms the basic raw material for most steel furnaces. The amounts and proportions of material used vary according to the process and the type of steel required. Steel can be described in general terms as iron with most of the carbon removed, to make it tougher and more ductile. However, there are many forms of steel, each with its own specific chemical analysis to meet the widely varying needs of the many different applications for steel products. There are soft steels, hard steels, spring steels, special electrical steels and a host of alloy and stainless steels which contain other metals in order to give them their special properties. Techniques of steelmaking have undergone vast changes in scale and new processes have been developed to meet the demands of speed, quantity and quality. However, only two major steelmaking processes are used today in the United Kingdom: Basic Oxygen and Electric Arc. The Basic Oxygen system is used in the UK for making bulk steels those used for consumer products and in construction and heavy engineering, for example. The Electric Arc furnace is generally used to make stainless grades. However, the use of the EAF for the production of ordinary commercial steels as part of the mini-mill concept is growing rapidly in many countries around the world. Hot metal is the principal material used in the BOS ( Basic Oxygen Steelmaking) process. Before steelmaking can begin, some pretreatment to remove unwanted elements from the iron may take place. The converter is tilted and charged, first with scrap and then with the molten iron, and then returned to the upright position. The molten iron accounts for about 80% of the total charge, the rest consisting of steel scrap. A water-cooled oxygen lance is lowered into the converter, and high-purity oxygen

Charge to tap: The BOS process at a glance.

Charging scrap

Basic Oxygen Steelmaking Converter

High purity oxygen

Converter fumes to cleaning plant

Fluxes and coolant

Water-cooled fume collecting hood Movable seal

Sub-lance for sampling

Taphole Emulsion for refining

Refactory lining Molten metal

Steel shell converter Bath agitation (inert gas)

is blown on to the metal at very high pressure. The oxygen forms a chemical bond with the unwanted elements and removes them as a slag which floats on top of the liquid steel. These oxidation reactions the chemical boil produce heat, and the temperature of the metal is controlled by the quality of the scrap and iron ore coolant added. The carbon leaves the converter as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, which can, after cleaning, are collected for reuse as a fuel. During the blow, lime is added as a flux to help carry off the other oxidised impurities as a layer of slag.

The quantities of scrap, hot metal, ore, lime and other fluxes are precisely calculated to ensure correct steel temperature and composition required to make the steel suitable for its specific target application In most plants, refining is assisted by the injection of gases, including argon, nitrogen and carbon dioxide, through the base of the furnace. At about 85% of the blow time a sublance is lowered into the converter to measure the carbon and temperature, which allows for a final adjustment of the oxygen and coolant to be made.

After the steel has been refined and sampled to check temperature and confirm composition, the converter is tilted again and the steel is tapped into a ladle. Typically, the carbon content at the end of refining is about 0.04 per cent. During tapping, alloy additions are made to adjust steel composition. When all the steel has been tapped, the converter is turned upside down and the residual slag is tipped into a waiting slag ladle for removal to slag cooling pond, from where it is further processed to reclaim any material which can be returned to the process.

Charging hot metal

Blow Tapping and additions Slagging

Making and rolling steel: Electric arc steelmaking

Scrap is the raw material used in the electric arc steelmaking process.

Making steel: EAF process

The Electric Arc furnace maximises the recyclability of steel, a material whose inherent properties are never reduced, no matter how often its recycled
Unlike the BOS process, the Electric Arc furnace uses mainly cold scrap metal, underlining the huge environmental benefit of steel as the most recycled material in the world. In that context scrap is a misnomer; steel such as that pictured above has a huge value in the steelmaking process, and an equally a significant role to play in preserving the worlds finite raw materials. The Electric Arc steelmaking process was originally used solely for making steel of special high qualities, as it gave more pre-

Left: An electric arc furnace. Right: Charge to tap: The EAF process at a glance.

Charging

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Electric Arc Furnace

Power cables

Graphite electroids

Additions chute Refactory lining

Water-cooled furnace roof Combined lance and burners Refactory lining Furnace door

Combined lance and burners

Steel and scrap Eccentric bottom tapping

Ladle car

cise control over the composition of the steel. Today, however, it is also employed in making more widely-used steels, including alloy and stainless grades as well as some special carbon and low alloy steels. It is also increasingly used as part of the mini-mill route to make ordinary commercial grades previously the preserve of the integrated route. An adaptation of the process is also used for secondary steelmaking procedures associated with the BOS process.

The furnace consists of a circular bath with a moveable roof, through which three graphite electrodes can be raised or lowered. At the start of the process, the electrodes are withdrawn and the roof swung clear. The steel scrap is then charged into the furnace from a large steel basket lowered from an overhead crane. When charging is complete, the roof is swung back into position and the electrodes and lowered into the furnace. A powerful electric current is passed

through the charge, an arc is created and the heat generated melts the scrap. Lime and fluorspar are added as fluxes, and usually carbon and oxygen are blown into the melt. As a result, impurities in the metal combine to form a liquid slag. Samples of the steel are taken and analysed to check composition and, when the correct composition and temperature have been achieved, the furnace is tapped rapidly into a ladle. Final adjustments to customer specification can be made by adding alloys during tapping or later in a Secondary Steelmaking unit.

Melting

Additions

Slagging

Tapping

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Making and rolling steel: Secondary steelmaking

Above: Vacuum degassing. Left: The electrodes of a ladle arc furnace.

Secondary steelmaking
Slight but carefully controlled changes to the chemical analysis of steel give it the perfect properties for end uses as diverse as a paper clip, an artificial Christmas tree or an aircraft carrier

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Ladle furnace

After the molten steel is tapped into a ladle from either the BOS or Electric Arc furnace, it is usually given one or more extra treatments depending upon its intended end use. These further refining stages are collectively know as secondary steelmaking, and can include ladle stirring with argon, powder or wire injection, vacuum degassing and ladle arc heating. Some

high grade steels combine all of these treatments. These processes improve homogenisation of temperature and composition, allow careful trimming of composition to exact ranges of analysis, remove harmful and unwanted gases such as hydrogen and reduce elements such as sulphur to very low levels. Designed to ensure that the steel reaches the casting stage at a

sufficiently high, correct temperature, the ladle arc process is a modern development which provides heat to the steel. Alloy and slag additions can be added in bulk to provide very close control of the steel composition. The molten steel is stirred with electromagnets to ensure even distribution of alloying elements, and equal temperature throughout.

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Making and rolling steel: Continuous casting

Above: A continuous casting machine. The ladle of molten steel is behind the large structural steelwork at the top of the picture; the tundish is in the centre of the picture, and the red-hot strands of cast steel are at the bottom of the picture.

Continuous casting
The most efficient means of changing molten steel into solid shapes is through the continuous casting process, which is also the best means of ensuring the highest levels of internal and surface quality

Right: Continuously casting billets.

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Continuous casting

In the Continuous Casting process the molten metal is teemed (poured) directly into a casting machine to produce shapes called billets, blooms or slabs. The process potentially eliminates the need for primary and intermediate rolling mills, as well as soaking pits and the storage and use of large numbers of ingot moulds, and increases the yield of usable product from a given weight of steel. Important cost savings arise from the use of Continuous Casting, compared with the ingot process, while quality of the finished steel product is better. This diagram above shows the general layout of a Continuous Casting machine.

A ladle of steel is brought to the Casting plant by overhead crane. After pre-treatment, which may involve stirring by the injection of an inert gas such as argon, the open mouth of the ladle is covered by an insulating lid to reduce heat loss. The whole unit is lifted by crane onto a rotating turret. This makes sequence casting possible the casting of a number of ladles of the same grade steel without stopping the machine; a further important factor in reducing costs. Before the casting operation, a gas-tight refractory tube is fitted to the outside of the ladle nozzle. This device prevents the liquid steel from taking up excessive

oxygen and nitrogen from the atmosphere. The ladle nozzle is then opened, allowing the steel to flow out of the ladle through a gas-tight tube called a shroud and into the tundish, a reservoir supplying the water-cooled copper mould of the casting machine, through another shroud, at a controlled rate. With only its outer shell solidified, the steel is then drawn downwards from the bottom of the mould through a curved arrangement of support rolls and water sprays until it emerges horizontally as solid steel from the discharge end of the machine, where it is cut by automatic gas cutting equipment to the lengths required.

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Making and rolling steel: Rolling mills

Section rolling.

Rolling mills
Steel rolling mills convert the semi-finished products from the continuous casting process into a range of more familiar everyday shapes
Although steel rolling mills produce a diverse variety of end products, the principle of operation in them all is much the same. In its simplest terms, the steel feedstock is heated to about 1,200C in a reheat furnace, and then forced between sets of electrically-driven steel rollers, called work rolls, which change its shape. Each pair of work rolls is housed in a stand. However, the change from feedstock to final profile cannot be achieved by a single pair of work rolls. Steel must first go through a roughing, which starts the shaping process. The roughing process is done in reversing mills, which means the steel passes through the work rolls in both directions. The next stage is for the hot steel to make a single pass through the finishing stands. These vary in number in the different mills. The Medium Section Mill,
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for example, has seven, and the steel being rolled is in all of the stands at the same time. Computers measure its profile continuously, and make minute adjustments throughout the rolling to ensure the profile stays within tolerance. In the Plate Mill the steel can also be turned through 90, allowing it to be rolled along its length and its width. In the Scunthorpe Rod Mill the steel is drawn through a series of dies, each one reducing the rod diameter a little more than the last, until the required diameter is reached, when it is coiled and cooled ready for dispatch. In this mill the steel travels at almost 150mph in the final stages of rolling. All mills have appropriate cutting and trimming facilities and the steel is cooled and bundled or wrapped in readiness for despatch. Strip steel, used for applications such as cars, vans and kitchen equipment, can be hot or cold rolled. Hot strip is typically up to 1.8m wide, and between 1 and

3mm thick. The thickness can be controlled to 0.05mm. Cold-rolled strip is very thin as little as 0.15mm and is the material used in applications such food and drink cans. It can be coated with zinc, tin or plastic to guard against corrosion, protect the contents, or for decorative purposes. Tubes are made in tube mills. Welded tubes are made from flat sheets formed into a cylinder before the edges are welded together. Seamless tubes are formed by making a hole down the centre of a hot billet, either in a large press or by rolling the billet through special piercing rolls.

Steel rolling in a universal mill

Top horizontal roll Horizontal chocks

Rolled product Vertical rolls

Horizontal chocks Bottom horizontal roll

Left: Four strands of hot steel pass through rolling mill stands. In this case the product being rolled is wire rod.

Right: A cross-section through a pair or work rolls producing a channel. The steel passes back and forth through the different grooves formed by the rolls. The shape gradually changes until the desired shape, for finishing in the next pair of rolls, is reached.

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Making and rolling steel: Process overview

Linking the processes

A short glossary of terms used in steel production

Alloy: 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 semi-finished steel shape, produced from the continuous casting process or rolled from a bloom. Said to be semi-finished because it can be sold to a customer or further processed by its producer to make other shapes. Blast furnace: Continuously-operated furnace smelting iron from ore. Large structure (approaching 100m tall) Takes its name from the blast of hot air blown through it to encourage burning of fuel to generate heat necessary to melt iron. Bloom: A semi-finished steel shape, produced from the continuous casting process. Larger than a billet. BOS steelmaking: Process for refining iron by removing carbon left over from the blast furnace, and adding other alloying elements to adjust chemistry to make steel suitable for a particular application. Process uses a molten iron (hot metal) from the blast furnace as well as scrap steel as its feedstock. Carbon steel: Iron containing less than 1 per cent carbon, making the metal hard but not brittle. Casting: The process of converting molten metal into solid by pouring it into a mould. Charging: Feeding materials into a furnace (The same word is applied to raw materials or steel to be re-heated for rolling in a rolling mill). 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, e.g. slabs, blooms and billets, direct from molten steel. Drawing: Pulling steel billets through tapered dies to produce wire. Dummy bar: A metal bar used to close the bottom of the mould in the continuous casting machine. Electric arc furnace: A furnace that uses electricity to melt scrap steel to produce new steel. Flux: Limestone or other materials used to collect impurities in the iron and steelmaking processes.

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This diagram is not intended to represent any specific steelmaking plant, but to indicate the flow through the process from raw materials to finished steel shapes.

Integrated steelworks: Works that operates all major production phases, from raw materials like iron ore to rolled steel. Galvanise: The coating of iron or steel with zinc to prevent rusting.

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.

Hot metal: Industrys name for molten iron. Ladle: A very large 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 and at high speed. Plate: Flat rolled steel product more than 3mm thick. Refractories: Heat resistant materials, usually bricks or cement, used as the linings of furnaces and ladles. Rod: Round steel bar produced in coils and used as feed for wiredrawing mills. 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 produced by continuous casting. Stand: Housing for pairs or sets 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 run on rails to 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. (Pronounced: tweeyers.) 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 or molybdenum. It resists rust because the alloying elements oxidise faster than the iron, forming an invisible coating. The coating is selfhealing because any damage exposes fresh alloying elements which oxidise to form further coating. Used extensively in kitchens.

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To infinity and beyond!

Steel is the worlds most recycled material, and recycling it has been part of the steelmakers art for decades, allowing conservation of raw materials, reducing energy costs, and doing away with the need to send it to landfill and there is no limit to the number of times steel can be recycled

Far from being junk, waste cans like these (left) are used to make new ones, and a former steelworks building at Lackenby on Teesside was used to make Heathrows Terminal 5 (main picture) and the stand at the Brit Oval cricket ground in London, (right).

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Built in 1956, the Lackenby open hearth steel plant at Corus Teesside was a huge building. Over 330 metres long, 39 metres high and 70 wide, it incorporated more than 20,000 tonnes of structural steelwork, and dominated the companys site. It no longer exists as the Lackenby open hearth steel plant. However, the steel is still part of Britains urban landscape, and as such is the prefect illustration of steels infinite recyclability. The self-same steel, re-melted, re-created as new steel and carefully tracked, is to be found in the re-developed Paddington Station, Heathrows Terminal 5, the Brit Oval cricket ground in London, and some of the copper-plated 2p coins in your pocket or purse.

Scrap is probably mis-named, since the name makes it sounds like a waste product, and its far from that. It is critical to the manufacture of new steel. More than 45 per cent of all steel is made directly from scrap, and all steel products include some recycled content. Because of this it has a very high value, a fact that ensures almost all scrap steel that becomes available is collected. Worldwide, it is estimated that the recovery rate is over 80 per cent, so scrap steel is money in the bank. This value is enhanced because steel reaching the end of its life is 100 per cent recyclable, and the possibilities for making new products are endless, so most of the worlds steel is kept in continuous circulation.

Recycling also reduces waste. Construction and demolition waste accounts for 24 per cent of the total arising in the UK, and diverting waste from landfill is a key priority for the construction industry. Because of the high residual value, 99 per cent of scrap derived from structural steel used in construction is either reused or recycled. Less than one per cent of steel sections end up in landfill at the end-of-life. Recycling displaces production made from virgin sources, which saves on raw material resources and energy and also means that emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, are reduced.

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Care has been taken to ensure that information is accurate but Tata Steel UK Limited, and its subsidiaries, does not accept responsibility or liability for errors or information which is found to be misleading. Copyright 2008 Corus

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