January 2016
Intermediate to advanced
230 pages
6h 1m
English
Content preview from A Profile of the Steel Industry
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
Start your free trial
Steel: The Metal and Its History
Iron is found in the Earth’s crust in the form of an ore, usually an iron oxide. Iron is extracted by smelting, removing the oxygen, and combining the ore with a preferred chemical partner such as carbon. Ancient methods of smelting have been used since the Bronze Age. The Haya people of East Africa invented a type of high-heat blast furnace, which allowed them to forge carbon steel nearly 2,000 years ago.
Steel is a metal alloy made by combining iron and another element, usually carbon, but it can also be combined with manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten. When carbon is used, its content in the steel is between 0.2 and 2.1 percent by weight, depending on the grade. Varying the ...