Ferrous Metals: Types, Properties, and Steelmaking Processes
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Types of Ferrous Metals
Ferrous metals are primarily industrial iron, steel, and cast iron.
Industrial Iron
Industrial iron has a low carbon content and inadequate mechanical characteristics, making it rarely used in industries.
Steel
Steels are ductile and malleable. Mechanical strength, hardness, and brittleness increase with carbon content, while weldability decreases with the percentage of carbon. Steel is also prone to rust. There are two main types of steels: carbon steels (those with low content of other elements) and alloy steels (containing other elements).
Various elements communicate a range of properties to steel. These include sulfur, cobalt, chromium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, lead, silicon, vanadium, and tungsten.
Cast Iron
Casting of carbon and alloy iron is easily fusible and is used to obtain parts by molding in sand or metal molds. Advantages include simpler manufacturing compared to steel, acceptable mechanical characteristics, and cheaper molding than steel.
Steelmaking Process
The steelmaking process encompasses the set of operations required to obtain a ferrous metal.
Obtaining Coking Coal
In the steelmaking process, coking coal acts as a fuel and reduces carbon oxides. Siderurgical coke is obtained by removing the volatile matter from coal.
Iron Ore Sintering
The goal of iron ore sintering is to create a material with well-sized grains that offer high gas permeability when entering the blast furnace.
Secondary Metallurgy
Secondary metallurgy is used to amend the composition of steel to meet specific requirements through one or more treatments.
Adjusting the Composition
Adjusting the composition is done by adding the elements needed to achieve the specified composition while blowing inert gas.
Desulfurization
Desulfurization removes sulfur by injecting a desulfurizing product into the steel while blowing inert gas.
Degassing
For degassing, the bucket enters a bell connected to a vacuum, which facilitates the extraction of gases contained within the metal.
Heating
Heating uses the heat produced by an electric arc jumping between electrodes through the bath.