Steel is a Modern High Tech Material

This wiki about steel should give you a brief overview of pig iron production and the subsequent steelmaking process. . We present products made of steel and give an insight into the great properties of the modern material steel. Additionally we will look at the history of steelmaking and some basics of alloying and post processing.

The pig iron then goes through further processing to finally become steel. In this wiki we will introduce steel products and some of the  material.

Steelmaking starts with the production of pig-iron from raw iron ore in a blast furnace.

As a very versatile material there are many utilizations for iron and nonferrous metals. At first we will present iron products; later however we will also introduce some uses for nonferrous metals such as aluminum.

To understand the process of steelmaking you need to be aware of some basic properties of steel. Steel primarily consists of iron which is combined with other elements called alloys to give it its unique properties. Using alloys it is possible to determine many characteristics of the final product already during the production process. This allows steel grades which fulfill very specific demands and justifies the label high tech material.<

Iron Ore Becomes Steel

Pig iron, the raw material for steel production, is usually obtained in the blast furnace using iron ore and coke. For this purpose, the iron ore is mixed as lump ore with coke and other components such as slag formers and fed into the blast furnace as so-called burden. There the iron ore is reduced with the help of blown in air, the wind. The pig iron still contains a lot of carbon, which has to be removed in a further step, the actual steel production.

The removal of carbon is achieved by refining, which means blowing with oxygen, which oxidizes the carbon. To obtain a finished alloy with the desired properties, other elements can be added or removed. This steel alloy is then, for example, cast in a continuous casting process to form a semi-finished product.

Steel Offers Many Applications

The wrought material sold by steel mills can subsequently be processed, for example to form thin sheets which offer additional often standardized applications. There are many other ways to manufacture a finished product.

Steel can be bought in a variety of different grades such as construction steel or stainless steel. Even more exotic variations are often used for example specialized tool steel Usually there is a differentiation between thick plates and thin sheets at a thickness of 3 mm. Thin sheets are typically delivered as coils.

Our stock program ranges from thin sheets to thick plates in construction steel, stainless steel and many other grades.

We also offer stainless steel machining for your parts.