Definiton of the Material

Iron and Steel are generally an alloy of iron and carbon which is often mixed with other elements (tailings). Special iron and steel alloys contain between 0.8 and fourteen percent Manganese (manganese steel), ten to thirteen percent silicon (acid-resistant steel) or twenty percent chromium (V2A-Steel).

The pig-iron produced in the blast furnace process (see below) or cast iron contain between two and four percent carbon. In contrast high-quality steel contains only a few hundredths of a percent of carbon. In general the amount of carbon in steel is between 0.04 and 2.1 percent.