steel glossary terms - industry definitions

Glossary Term	Glossary Explanation
Anneal	Refers in metallurgy to heat treatment which is used to impart changes in mechanical properties such as strength and hardness. Typically, the annealing process is used to induce softness and to relieve stress, allowing the steel to be further worked
AOD	Argon oxygen decarburisation: a process often applied to special steels whereby argon and oxygen are blown into the converter to reduce the carbon content of the steel
API	American Petroleum Institute - the trade association that represents the US oil and gas industry. The API also has an important role in the development of industry standards which have broad international acceptance and which include steel grades (for example) for use in oil and gas transmission pipelines
Apparent consumption	The mathematical sum of production plus imports minus exports. The difference between 'apparent' consumption and 'real' consumption is that the latter definition also recognises changes in stock levels
Bar-in-coil	Steel bar that is in coiled form, rather than in lengths. Bar products 10mm in diameter and below are typically coiled
Base metals	The glossary term typically refers to the set of easily corroding [non-ferrous] metals that includes copper, aluminium, lead, nickel, tin and zinc
BAT	Best available technique. Typically used in the context of environmental performance, BATs have supporting technical reference documents known as BREFs, which are reference benchmarks
Beneficiation	Reference in the mining industry to the process of separating ore by crushing and other means into mineral and waste products
Billet	A semi-finished steel product, typically cast to a square cross section of ~120 x 120 mm to ~180 x 180 mm and usually used for rolling into bar and / or small sections
Black plate	Glossary phrase refers to uncoated cold rolled steel, typically thin gauge material between 0.14-0.5 mm thick. The most common application of black plate is production of tinplate for the packaging industry
Bloom	A semi finished steel product, larger than billet and typically cast to a square cross section of ~200 x 200 mm to ~360 x 360 mm (or as a round of ~300 mm diameter)
Body-in-white	Glossary item refers to car body shell after the welding stage but prior to painting of the steel
BOF	Basic oxygen furnace, which converts hot metal (pig iron from the blast furnace) into liquid steel by blowing oxygen into the furnace to remove carbon as carbon monoxide gas
Campaign	Period of continuous blast furnace operation: 20-25 years represents a fairly typical campaign
Capacity creep	Trend for slow increase in capacity over a period of years, arising because of learning, incremental investment, modernisation of maintenance practices etc. In the steel sector, capacity creep results in steel plant capacity increasing on average by perhaps 0.5% to 1% per annum
CAPL	Continuous annealing and processing line, used for the production of cold rolled steel. The continuous anneal process is to be distinguished from batch annealing. Whilst the former is better suited to high volume production (e.g. on automotive-dedicated production lines) the latter is best suited to small job lots and / or specialty grades
Carburisation	Process of introduction of carbon into steel - typically involving heat treatment - to improve surface hardness
Cast iron	A ferrous alloy with more than 2.1% carbon content and typically also with significant amounts of silicon, normally in the 1 - 3% range
Cobble	An incident when bar that is being hot rolled either jams in the mill guides, resulting in delays to reset the guides and rolls, or comes out of its normal rolling trajectory, frequently landing (often at high speed) in the area adjacent to the rolling mill stands
Coke	A solid carbon based product derived from baking bituminous coal at high temperature to remove volatile constituents. Metallurgical coke ['met coke'] is used as the main fuel in the smelting of iron ore in a blast furnace
Cold finishing	Processing of steel either with surface removal (polishing, grinding, peeling) or without surface removal (e.g. through wire drawing), primarily for further machining into shapes such as gears, shafts, hydraulic fittings etc
Cold heading	Also known as cold upsetting, or fastener production. Glossary term refers to the production of nuts and bolts through cold deformation
Continuous casting	A process in which molten steel is poured into a water-cooled copper mould for gradual solidification as it is drawn down the caster, turning into a solid steel billet, bloom, or slab. Compared to ingot casting, continuous casting has evolved as the preferred method for making semi-finished steel because of much better yield, productivity and cost performance
Corex ®	Reduction process for production of hot metal from iron ore using coal. Key advantages over traditional integrated steelmaking include the ability to use non-coking coal [eliminating the need for coke batteries] and the ability to iron ore pellets [eliminating the need for sinter plant]
Cost price squeeze	Refers to the long term trend in the steel sector for new technology to lead to cost improvements - for example through introduction of continuous casting replacing ingot casting - meaning reductions over time of overall price and cost levels. The trend is sometimes quantified as an erosion of nominal revenue of ~1% per annum or more
CSP	Compact strip production - see glossary under 'thin slab casting'
DRI	Direct reduced iron - a residual-free scrap substitute
EAF	Electric arc furnace - a furnace that melts (and thus recycles) steel scrap for the production of liquid steel using electrical power
ECSC	European Coal and Steel Community - the original version of what is now known as the European Community. Founded by the Treaty of Paris in 1952, the ECSC was based on the principle of member nations sharing their coal and steel resources
ECX	European Climate Exchange - marketplace for trading carbon dioxide emissions
EGL	Electrogalvanised - typically used to describe electrolytically zinc coated sheet steel
EIA	Environmental impact assessment - an appraisal of the environmental impact of a project during both construction and operation phases, and of future compliance with relevant regulatory requirements
ERW	Electrical resistance welding: welding by the process of passing of an electric current through two metals. Resistance to the current creates heat, melting the metal (often under some force) and thus forming the weld
ESTEP	Acronym for European Steel Technology Platform - a body focused on strategic research undertaken for various European and National Research Ministries
ETS	Emissions trading scheme - a system for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, based on pricing of CO2 output

STEEL INDUSTRY GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Technical glossary - jargon made simple