Steel making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Steel making - Essay Example The process of steel making process involves producing steel from either the ferrous scrap or from iron. During the steel making practice, there is the removal of excessive impurities, among which are silicon, nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous from raw iron, together with other elements of alloy like nickel, vanadium, chromium and manganese, for the production of different steel grades (Mohammed, Stephen, and Seetharaman 1566). The limitation of dissolved gases that include oxygen and nitrogen, as well as all other impurities entrained within steel is important for enhancing the product quality cast from the initial liquid state. Two important processes are involved in steel making; the electric arc furnace, and Basic Oxygen Steelmaking (BOS). The latter uses scrap steel and blast-based liquid pig-iron as the major feed materials, whereas the former makes use of the direct reduced iron or the scrap steel (Mao, Pan, Pang, and Chai 67). The oxygen steel making is exclusively fueled by the reaction’s exothermic nature within the vessels, while the electric arc furnace (EAF) process makes use of the electric energy for melting of the solid scrap material. Introduction of additional chemical energy for EAF processes has enhanced the evolution of the process to almost equal the technological expertise involved in oxygen steel making. The modern processes for steel making can be classified as primary or secondary. The primary steel making generally entails the conversion of liquid iron from an original steel scrap and blast furnace to steel by the melting of scrap, or basic oxygen steel making, and the use of direct reduced iron within the electric arc furnace (Seiji, Yoshiyuki, and Masuro 13). The secondary process of steel making, however, entails the refinery of crude steel prior to casting, and this involves numerous operations in the ladles. The addition of alloying agents occurs during the secondary metallurgy