el libro blanco del acero (ingles)

7/29/2019 El Libro Blanco del Acero (Ingles)

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The white book o


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The white book o steel


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worldsteel represents approximately 170 steel producers (including 17 of the worlds 20 largest steel companies),national and regional steel industry associations and steel research institutes. worldsteel members representaround 85% of world steel production. worldsteel acts as the focal point for the steel industry, providing globalleadership on all major strategic issues aecting the industry, particularly focusing on economic, environmentaland social sustainability.

worldsteel has taken al l possible steps to check and conrm the facts contained in this book however, someelements will inevitably be open to interpretation. worldsteel does not accept any liability for the accuracy of data,information, opinions or for any printing errors.

Te white book of steel World Steel Association 2012ISBN 978-2-930069-67-8

Design by double-id.comCopywriting by Pyramidion.be


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Steel before the 18th century 6

Amazing steel18th to 19th centuries 12

Revolution!20 th century global expansion, 1900-1970s 20

Steel ageEnd of 20th century, start of 21st 32

Going for growth: Innovation of scale

Steel industry today & future developments 44

Sustainable steel

Website 48

ES

Please refer to the glossary section on page 48 to nd the denition of the words highlighted in blue throughout the book.


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Detail o India rom Ptolemys world map. Iron was frst ound in meteorites (git o the gods) then thousands

o years later was developed into steel, the discovery o which helped shape the ancient (and modern) world


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Amazing steel

Steel is one o the worlds most essential materials.It is undamental to every aspect o our lives, rom

inrastructure and transport to the humble tin-

plated steel can that preserves ood. With steel, we

can create huge buildings or tiny parts or precision

instruments. It is strong, versatile and infnitely

recyclable.

Te rise of steel began with the 19th centuryIndustrial Revolution in Europe and North America.Yet steelmaking isnt new. Master craftsmen

in ancient China and India were skilled in itsproduction. However, it is only in the past 200years that science has revealed the secrets of thisremarkable material.

oday, steelmakers know how to combine the exactmix of iron, a small percentage of carbon and othertrace elements to produce hundreds of types of steel.Tese are then rolled, annealed and coated to delivertailor-made properties for innumerable applications.

Tis book traces major milestones in the historyof steel, highlighting some of the many inventors,entrepreneurs and companies that have shaped itsdevelopment.

Steel has an exciting past and an even more excitingfuture. Steelmakers continue to reduce the energyrequired to make steel. Modern high-strength steelsprovide more strength with less weight, helpingreduce the emissions of carbon dioxide of end-

products such as cars. And because steel can be soeasily recycled, supplies will remain abundant forgenerations to come.

A happy discovery

Te industrial isation of steel production in the 19thcentury has helped build our modern world, but theorigins of steelmaking go back thousands of years.

SEE EE E 18 E

Ever since our ancestors started to mine and smeltiron, they began producing steel.

More than 4,000 years ago, people in Egypt andMesopotamia discovered meteoric iron and used thisgift of the gods as decoration. But it was another2,000 years before people began producing iron frommined iron ore. Te earliest nds of smelted iron inIndia date back to 1800 Before Common Era (BCE).Te Hittites of Anatol ia began smelting iron around1500 BCE. When their empire collapsed around1200 BCE, the various tribes took the knowledge ofironmaking with them, spreading it across Europe

and Asia. Te Iron Age had begun.

However, iron is not steel. Iron Age metal workersalmost certainly discovered steel as an accidentalby-product of their ironworking activities. Teseearly smiths heated iron ore in charcoal res, whichproduced a relatively pure spongy mass of iron calleda bloom that could then be hammered (wrought)into shape.

Tese early smiths would have noticed that when ironwas lef t in the charcoal furnaces for a longer period,it changed. It became harder and stronger: qualitiesthey undoubtedly recognised as valuable. Tey wouldalso have noticed that these qualities improved withrepeated heating, folding and beating of the materialas they forged the metal.

The East India Companys por t in Bombay, Ind ia in the 18th century


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ew techniques

Having discovered steel and its superior qualities,Iron Age craftsmen transformed it into tools andweapons such as knives. Soon, new techniques weredeveloped, such as quench hardening the rapidcooling of the worked steel in water or oil to increaseits hardness. An archaeological nd in Cyprus

indicates that craftsmen were producing quench-hardened steel knives as early as 1100 BCE.

Nonetheless, in the ancient world, steelmakingremained a lengthy and dicult process, and the raresteel items produced would have been highly prized.

Ancient craft

One o the earliest reerencesto steel-working comes rom

Greek historian, Herodotus,

reerring to a bowl inlaid

by Glaucus o Chios in the

seventh century BCE: A

great bowl o pure silver, with

a salver in steel curiously inlaid. Glaucus, the

Chian, made it, the man who frst invented the

art o inlaying steel.

A global industry begins

Iron Age steelmakers did not understand thechemistry of steel. Its creation held many mysteriesand the nal result depended on the skill ofindividual metal workers. First among these were thecraftsmen of southern India. As early as the thirdcentury BCE, they were using crucibles to smeltwrought iron with charcoal to produce wootz steel a material that is still admired today for its quality.

Chinese craftsmen were also manufacturinghigh-quality steel. It seems that the Chinese hadsomething similar to the Bessemer process as early asthe second century BCE, which was only developedin Europe in the 19th century. Steel agriculturalimplements were widely used in the ang Dynasty,around 600-900 CE.

A Japanese Buddhist temple be ll

Iron Age metal workers almost certainly discovered steel as an accidental

by-product o their activities


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SEE EE E 18 E

Moreover, with expertise came trade. Te skills oftraders in India and China created an internationalmarket in steel. Many historians believe that thefamous Roman natural scientist and writer Plinythe Elder was referring to China when he describedSeres as the best source of steel in the world. AndDamascus swords, celebrated for their exceptionalquality, were made of wootz steel from India.

egendary swords

Much of the demand for early steel was driven bywarfare. Imperial armies, including those of China,Greece, Persia and Rome, were eager for strong,durable weapons and armour. Among others, theRomans learnt how to temper work-hardened steel toreduce its brittleness by reheating it and allowing it tocool more slowly.

By the 15th century, steel was well establishedworldwide. Swords in particular took full advantageof steels unique properties, the blades being tough,

exible and easily sharpened. From Damascus andoledo swords to the katanas wielded by Japanesesamurai, steel was the material of choice for the nestweapons of their age.

Te use of steel was not conned to militarypurposes. Many tools such as axes, saws and chiselsbegan to incorporate steel tips to make them moredurable and ecient. Yet, despite its growing use,making steel remained a slow, time-consuming and

expensive process.Iron is reheated to reduce its brittleness

The bayonet was frst reer red to as ear ly as 1611, and it was named

ater Bayonne in France. This a Spanish bayonet

A Japanese katana sword: Traditionally made rom a specialised Japanese steel ca lled Tamahagane,

which consist o combinations o hard, high-carbon steel and tough, low carbon steel

Traditional Persian swords ( shamshirs ): The word means curved

like the lions claw


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he rise of crucible steel

Over the centuries, the true nature of Damascus orwootz steel and how it was made intrigued metalworkers and scholars across Asia and Europe. Manyearly Islamic scientists wrote studies on swords andsteel with extensive discussions of Damascus steel.And from the mid-17th century, a growing number ofEuropean travellers such as Frenchman Jean-Baptisteavernier incorporated visits to Indian steelmakingsites on their journeys to the East, oering detailedeye-witness accounts in their books and journals.

Tis interest reected the continued growth in ironand steelmaking across Europe. As early as the 12thcentury, technologies such as blast furnaces, alreadyknown in Asia, began to emerge. Te remains ofone of the earliest examples can still be seen atLapphyttan, in Sweden. Indeed, thanks to its richiron-ore deposits, advanced production techniquesand the purity of its wrought iron, Sweden becamea major supplier of high-quality iron to steelmakersacross the continent.

Damascene mysteries

A legend in their own time, Damascus swords

were renowned or their sharpness and wavy

surace patterning. They were made rom

wootz steel, which probably or iginated in

Central Asia or Southern India. To this day,

nobody has been able to reproduce the

characteristics o this remarkable steel.

The Great Exhib ition, Crysta l Palace, London (1851)


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Production speed heats up

Mostly, the steelmakers of the time were producingsteel using the cementation process, in whichwrought iron bars are layered in powdered charcoaland heated for long periods to increase the carboncontent in the alloy. It was a process that could takedays or weeks.

Ten in 1740, a secretive yet highly inventive youngEnglishman called Benjamin Huntsman revealedhis new crucible technique to master cutlers in thenorth of England. Using a clay pot, called a crucible,

he was able to achieve temperatures high enoughto melt the bars created in the cementation processand cast (pour) the resulting liquid steel to createsteel ingots of uniform high quality and in relativelyhigh quantities at least in comparison with whathad gone before. Huntsmans invention was not thenal step towards low-cost, high-volume productionof high-quality steel. It would take other inventorsto achieve that goal. He had, however, provided theimpetus for one of the greatest steelmaking centres of

the 19th and 20th centuries Sheeld, England.

lock springs to cutlery

Huntsmans invention

began with clock springs.

As a clockmaker,

Huntsman was dissatisfed

with the quality o existing

steel parts rom Germany,

so he set out to make

his own steel. Remarkably, when he frst

approached the cutlers o Shefeld with his

crucible steel, they reused to work with it.Only when they were unsuccessul in trying

to block him rom exporting it to French

manuacturers, did they fnally start using it.

SEE EE E 18 E

Blacksmiths inside a orge taken rom theIllustrated London News, circa 1740


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19th century blast urnaces in Lancashire, England


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evolution!

Huntsmans development o the crucible processwas just one invention o the Industrial Revolution,

a time o huge technological creativit y. Originating

in Britain, the Industrial Revolution led to massive

changes in manuacturing, trade and society

worldwide. When it began in the 18th century, iron

still dominated the industrial landscape. By its end

in the early 20 th century, steel was king, the metal at

the heart o the modern world.

rom trees to steam

Te Industrial Revolution and modern steelmanufacture began with a shortage of trees. Up tothe 1700s, British iron and steelmakers used charcoalboth in their furnaces and to carburise iron. Butwith agricultural and industrial expansion, woodbecame in increasingly short supply. So metalworkersturned to coke, made from coal, as the fuel forreverberatory furnaces, where heat radiated o the

wal ls and roof to create temperatures high enoughto melt the ore.

Ten in 1709, Abraham Darby perfected the useof coke in a blast furnace to produce pig iron forpots and kettles. Tis new technique helped boostproduction, leading to further demand for coal andcoke. But coal mining had a problem: how to keepunderground mines from ooding.

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Tomas Newcomen developed a revolutionarysolution, the atmospheric engine, a forerunner ofthe steam engine, in 1712, and it changed the world.By 1775, James Watt had created an improved steamengine; by 1804, the rst railways had been built.Where industries such as textiles once rel ied onmanual labour, watermills and horses, steam broughtmechanisation and mass production.

uilding with metal

Steam pumps helped power water wheels, which

allowed iron and steel manufacturers to drive theirblast furnaces, even in periods of low rainfall. Cokepig iron became plentiful, and iron was increasinglyreplacing wood as a construction material. In 1778,Darbys grandson built the famous Iron Bridge inShropshire, England, one of the most innovativestructures of the age, which is still functional and invery sound condition.

Meanwhile, steel was providing the hard, sharp

edges for many of the tools required by this new eraof machine power. It was the materia l of choice fordrill bits, saws and cutting edges of all kinds. Tesegrowing applications of iron and steel encouragedfurther innovation. Soon another inventor, HenryCort, would set the scene for a vital manufacturingprocess the rolling of sheet iron and steel.

Steel plus steam allowed or the vital development o railways

The Iron Br idge in Shropshire, England. The frst arch bridge in the wor ld

to be made o cast iron - it was opened in 1781, and stands to this day


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he foundations of the modern world

As the Industrial Revolution progressed, so diddemand for iron and steel. Tese metals werecritical to trade and transport. Tere would be norailways without metal. And shipbuilders too, weredemanding ever-higher quality metal components.As a supplier to the shipbuilding industry, HenryCort developed two ground-breaking techniques tomeet these needs, patented in 1783 and 1784.

One involved improving the quality of pig iron bystirring the molten melt in a puddling furnace. Tis

reduced the carbon content, so the metal was tougherand less brittle. Te second technique involved rollingthe hot metal ready for manufacturing into endproducts. Gentler than traditional hammering, thisfurther added to the metals strength.

With this combination, Cort set the scene for massproduction of vital components for the new industrialworld such as tracks for railways. It paved the wayfor industrial-scale rolling mills and the creation of

sheet iron and steel for new applications, such as thebuilding of iron ships.

Steel makes its mark

By the 1800s, large-scale industrialisation wasspreading throughout Europe. Pioneers tookthe latest techniques and technologies with themoverseas, bringing industrialisation to North America,Japan and the rest of the world.

At this time, steel was not yet being mass produced.Nonetheless, it was making a major impact in areassuch as agriculture. Nowhere was this more apparentthan North America, where farmers were turningvirgin land into farmable soil.

Above all, steel played a key role in opening up theprairies of the Midwest.Wrought iron ploughs simplybroke in the heavy soils, so a quick-thinking youngblacksmith called John Deere created a plough witha steel blade. In the next 50 years, the steel plough andsteam-driven equipment transformed agriculture, notjust in the US but in Europe as well. Mechanisationhad arrived on the land.

An 18th century puddling urnace


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Pipes and welds

In 1815, Scottish engineer William Murdock issaid to have joined together disused musket barrelsto form a pipe network for his coal-red lightingsystem in London. His initiative marked the startof steel piping, now a fundamental element in oil,gas and water infrastructures. odays pipes areeither seamless, with the centre forced out duringproduction, or have a welded seam along their length,technology that dates to the Mannesmann process,based on cross-roll piercing which, for decades, wasused in combination with pilger rolling. Both rollingtechniques were invented by the German brothersReinhard and Max Mannesmann towards the endof the 19th century. In the 1880s, while they wererolling starting material for the familys le factory,the Mannesmann brothers noticed that rolls arrangedat an angle to each other can loosen the core of aningot and cause it to break open. Based on the boldidea of putting this phenomenon to systematic use,they managed to produce a seamless hollow bodyfrom a solid ingot initially by rolling alone. Verysoon, however, they optimized the rolling process

by using a plug to ensure more uniform piercingand a smoother inside surface. Te need for pipesto be perfectly sealed has helped driveweldingtechniques, as well as the development of steels that

can withstand high welding temperatures withoutcracking or weakening.

SEA AD E DSA E

amous names in steel

Some o todays leading steel

companies have their roots

in the 1800s. For example,

Friedrich Krupp and partners

ormed the Krupp Companyin Germany in 1811. By the

end o the century, it was

the largest steel company in Europe and today

is part o the ThyssenKrupp group. In Japan,

Nippon Steel (today Nippon Steel & Sumitomo

Metals) can trace its history back to 1857,

when steel was successully tapped rom

Japans frst Western-style urnace at Kamaishi.

The Eiserner Steg stee l bridge bu ilt in 1868 in Frankurt, Germany


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he essemer converter

Bessemer aimed to create

steel by driving the impurities

out o pig iron. Air-pumps

orced high-pressure air

through molten iron in his

egg-shaped urnace. Rather

than cooling the iron, the

air reacted with impurities such as carbon,

manganese and silicon in the iron, causing

them to oxidise. This raised the temperature

urther, igniting even more impurities and

producing a violent display with sparks and

ames erupting rom the converters open top

like a volcano. Fast and cheap, when fnally

perected this spectacular process took less

than hal an hour to turn pig iron into steel.

nto mass production

For centuries, steel had remained a niche metal,prized for its toughness and for creating sharp edges,but it was slow and expensive to manufacture. In the1850s and 1860s, new techniques emerged that mademass production possible.

Tis transformation is largely associated with thework of one English inventor, Henry Bessemer.Arguably the most inuential advance of the laterIndustrial Revolution, the Bessemer process formedthe heart of steelmaking for more than 100 years.Introduced in 1856, it revolutionised the industrywith a quick, cheap way to produce steel in largequantities.

At the same time, Carl Wilhelm Siemens, a Germannational who spent most of his life in England, wasdeveloping his regenerative furnace. By recycling thehot exhaust gases from the previous batch of melting,Siemens process could generate temperatures highenough to melt steel. And by 1865, Frenchman

Pierre-Emile Martin had applied Siemenstechnology to create the Siemens-Martin open-hearth process. Although not quite as fast as theBessemer process, open-hearth techniques allowedfor more precise temperature control, resulting inbetter-quality steel. Tere are now only seven of theseregenerative furnaces left in the world.

The Ei el Tower in Par is, France: Gustave Ei els iconic i ron lat tice

masterpiece contains 18,038 pieces o puddle iron and 2.5 million rivets


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aterial of choice

In the course of just two decades, these inventorsshaped the modern steel industry. Now, consistentlygood quality steel was available in high volumeand consistent shapes and sizes, perfect for the vastmajority of large-scale, heavy-duty applications.

Steel quickly replaced iron in the emerging railways,and all kinds of construction from bridges tobuildings. It also enabled the manufacture of large,powerful turbines and generators, harnessingthe power of water and steam to drive furtherindustrialisation and usher in the age of electricpower.

Ancient technique, modern success

Bessemer was not the frst to invent an air-injection process to create steel. Such techniques had

been used in ancient China. William Kelly, an American inventor, independently came up with such a

process in the 1850s, possibly inspired by Chinese know-how. Kelly subsequently went bankrupt, and

even Bessemer struggled to make his process work. It was advice rom Englishman Robert Mushet,

an expert metal-worker, to blow o all the impurities then add carbon back into the metal that fnally led

to a high-quality, malleable (rollable) product.

SEA AD E DSA E

A steam turbine: Steel is an i rrep laceable component

A 19th century industrial landscape in Wales by Penry Williams


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Carnegie was a master of eciency. He was quickto adopt, and improve on, innovations such as theBessemer process. He is also credited with thevertical integration of al l raw materia ls suppliersand was involved in several early steel projects. Forexample, his Keystone Bridge Company supplied thesteel for one of the worlds rst steel bridges, the EadsBridge across the Mississippi at St Louis, completedin 1874 and still in use today.

Te Carnegie steelworks also provided a rst job forCharles Schwab, who went on to run the BethlehemSteel Company, one the US largest and most famous

20 th century steelmakers. And across the USA, thiswas an age of steel construction rsts. New YorksBrooklyn Bridge, the rst steel wire suspensionbridge, opened in 1883. Te worlds rst steel-framedskyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in Chicagowas constructed by William Le Baron Jenney in1884-1885. Te Iron Age was at its end and the ageof steel had truly begun.

uilding the future

With the introduction of the Bessemer process,steel became one of the cornerstones of the worldsindustrial economy. Available in large quantities andat a competitive price, steel soon supplanted iron inbuildings where steel framing and reinforced concretemade curtain-wall architecture possible, leadingto the rst skyscrapers. And in shipbuilding, steelbegan to replace wrought iron plates. Cunards SSServia was one of the rst steel liners complete withanother innovation, electric lighting.

Britain grew to be the worlds largest producer ofsteel. Te bulk of the UKs steel industry was locatedin Sheeld, where John Deere initially sourced thesteel for his ploughs. But by the last decade of the19th century, America would outgrow Britain tobecome the largest steel producer in the world, duemainly to the eorts of one man: Andrew Carnegie.

A weavers son from Scotland, Andrew Carnegiewas already a successful businessman in the rail andtelegraph industries by the start of the AmericanCivil War in 1861. After the war, the US saw a boomin construction. Railways opened up the Wild Westand the cities of Americas east coast grew rapidly.And Carnegie was there to meet the demand for iron,and later steel.

The steel st ructure in Antwerps Cent ral Train S tation (1905)

Brooklyn b ridge, New York, USA (1883). This was the longest suspension

bridge in the world until 1903, and the frst steel-wire suspension bridge


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Andrew arnegie

Andrew Carnegies lie is

the classic rags-to-riches

tale. Born in Dunermline,

Scotland, his amily emigrated

to the US in 1848. Carnegie

started work aged 13, earning

just 20 cents per day. At 18,

he was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad

Company, where he advanced rapidly up

the organisation while learning much about

business. In 1870, he ounded the Carnegie

Steel Company, which grew to become the

largest and most proftable industrial enterprise

in the world by the 1890s.

At age 66, Carnegie sold the company

to fnancier, banker and philanthropist J.P.

Morgan, who developed many improvements

in mill design and rolling o steel that were

built on and improved over the decades tocome Carnegie, meanwhile, devoted the rest

o his lie to investing his wealth in projects or

the public good. These ranged rom libraries

to schools and hospitals and included the

Carnegie Institute o Technology, now part

o the Carnegie Mellon University.

SEA AD E DSA E

An old-sty le skyscraper, bui lt beore steel became commonplace in

skyscrapers construction


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A 1950s Cadillac E ldorado Chrome Gr ille in San Francisco, Cali orn ia, USA


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20 E A EPAS, 1900-1970s

he steel age

By the dawn o the 20th

century, steelmakingwas a major industry and science was increasingly

unlocking the mysteries o steel. A British

gentleman scientist named Henry Cliton Sorby

created a sensation by putting metal samples under

a microscope. His pioneering work revealed steels

secret it gained its strength rom the small,

precise quantities o carbon locked within the

iron crystals.

Tis was also an age of great industrialists. In theUS, J.P. Morgan bought out Andrew Carnegies steelbusiness to form the United States Steel Corporationin 1901, which founded the city of Gary, Indianain 1906 as the home for its new plant Gary wasnamed after Elbert Henry Gary, founding chairmanof US Steel. Morgan had learned from Carnegie thatintegrating all parts of the manufacturing processinto one single organisation could lead to ecienciesin process and scale. In 2011, US Steel was thesecond-largest producer of steel in the US.

Manufacturing processes evolved too. Te open-hearth process gradually replaced the Bessemerprocess as the primary method for steel production.Although slower, this drawback was also itsadvantage plant chemists had time to analyse andcontrol the quality of the metal during the reningprocess, resulting in stronger grades of steel.

With greater understanding of the properties of steel,steel alloys became more widespread. In 1908, theGermania, a 366-ton yacht built by the FriedrichKrupp Germania shipyard had a hull made ofchrome-nickel steel. And in 1912, two of KruppsGerman engineers, Benno Strauss and EduardMaurer, patented stainless steel, the invention ofwhich is in fact usually credited to Harry Brearley(1871-1948), a Sheeld-born English chemist who,during his work for one of the citys laboratories,began to research new steels that could betterresist the erosion caused by high temperatures, andexamine the addition of chromium, which eventuallyresulted in the creation of what is probably the best-known alloy of all.

he impact of war

Te 20 th centurys two world wars had hugeconsequences for steelmaking. Like other heavyindustries, steelmaking was nationalised in manycountries due to demands for military equipment.

Steel was required for the railways and ships thatcarried troops and supplies.

Military vehicles and particularly the tank also reliedheavily on steel. From their invention until the endof the Second World War, tanks were protected bysteel plates with a uniform structure and compositionknown as rolled homogenous armour (RHA). Tistype of armour was so universal that it became thestandard for determining the eectiveness of anti-tank weapons.

Pyrite mineral on mine rock

A Soviet T-34 tank (produced between 1940 and 1958 )


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As safe as steel

In the Soviet Union, steel

production and use was

driven by Joseph Stalin,

whose name literally meant

steel man. Leader o the

country rom 1928 to 1953,

Stalin was responsible or

the nations industrial revolution, including

construction o the steel city o Magnitogorsk,

with its Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works(MMK), which was built east o the Ural

Mountains, close to signifcant iron ore

deposits. Magnitogorsk was so remote that

almost everything needed or daily lie was

imported by rail and, during the Second World

War, MMK provided much o the steel or the

Soviet armys tanks. Stalin believed that the

city would be sae rom advancing armies,

and so it proved to be MMK continues to

produce and expand today.

Welcome to the white-goods era

After the austerity of the Second World War, tradeand industry revived. Steel that once went to maketanks and warships now met consumer demandfor automobiles and home appliances. Populationsboomed and so did construction. As more peoplemoved into cities, buildings became larger and taller,and huge quantities of steel were required for girdersand reinforced concrete.

Growing prosperity and technological innovationtransformed everyday life. By the 1960s, mass-

produced electrical appliances became increasinglyaccessible to millions of consumers. Tese includedrefrigerators, freezers, washing machines and tumbledryers, etc. And the iconic shipping container designed in 1955 and made of steel provided astrong, safe way to transport all these goods by ship,road and rail.

Obviously, the automobile quickly became a hugelypopular mass-consumption item, transforming the

landscape and leading to the development of the oiland gas industry, a process that involved all types ofsteel products.

A 1950s American ki tchen: Steel played an important role in the post-war

labour-saving devices that became increasingly available and inexpensive


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Stronger steel

New technologies and infrastructures drove demandfor new kinds of materials with very specicmechanical properties. Steelmakers around the worldresponded to the challenge, launching developmentsthat would reveal steels almost innite versatility.By adding carefully controlled quantities of dierentelements to the melted iron ore, they began todevelop new high strength, low alloy (HSLA) steels.

Te oil and gas industry had special needs. Giantpipelines across baking deserts, frozen wastes, or

under the sea, need to be strong and tough. Teymust also have excellent weldability, so there is noweakness at the joints between sections. In this case,an HSLA steel with manganese and traces of otherelements delivered all the required properties.

From these beginnings in the 1960s, the range ofHSLA steels has grown enormously. Tey are usedin everything from bridges to lawnmowers. Aboveall, they oer a much greater strength-to-weightratio than traditional carbon steel. ypically, theyare around 20-30% lighter than carbon steels, withthe same strength. Tis property has made themespecially popular with carmakers, allowing cars tobe strong and safe, yet also light and fuel ecient.

Strengthening international bonds

While steel was providing the oundations o

modern society, the steel industry was acting

as a ocus or new relationships between

countries. In 1951, France, West Germany, Italy

and the Benelux nations joined together in the

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).

The community created a common market

to drive economic expansion, promote industry

and raise living standards. With its ocus on

ree movement o products, the European Coal

and Steel Community was the frst step on a

journey that ult imately led to the creation o the

European Union.

20 E A EPAS, 1900-1970s

Industrial steel pipelines

Steel coils: Holding a continent together


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rom ame to electricity

In the mid-20th century, steelmaking advanced onmany fronts. Basic oxygen steelmaking and electricarc furnaces transformed the main productionprocesses, making them faster and more energyecient. Tey even allowed manufacturers to re-usescrap as input material.

Along with introducing new primary techniques,steelmakers also improved on traditional techniquesof casting and rolling to create sheets, shapes andsteel to precise customer requirements. Some of

these developments came from Europe, the USA andRussia. But new steelmakers, especially in Japan andKorea, quickly developed their own innovations thatin turn inspired steelmakers worldwide.

What exactly were these new techniques? Te rst basic oxygen steelmaking is essentially a renedversion of the Bessemer converter, which uses oxygenrather than air to drive o excess carbon from pigiron to produce steel. Te process was invented by aSwiss, Robert Durrer, in 1948, and was then furtherdeveloped by Austrian company VES AG (todayvoestalpine AG). It is also known as the Linz-Donawitz (LD) process, after the Austrian towns inwhich it was rst commercialised.

Most importantly, the process is fast. Modern basicoxygen furnaces (BOFs) can convert an iron chargeof up to 350 tonnes into steel in less than 40 minutes compare this with the 1012 hours needed tocomplete a heat in an open-hearth furnace.

aking the most of scrap

Seeing the benets of speed and reduced energyconsumption, manufacturers soon began to replaceopen-hearth furnaces with BOFs. But in the 1960s,scrap from vehicles, household appliances andindustrial waste became a signicant, and cheap,resource. Te question was, how to reuse it? In aBOF, up to 25% of the charge can be scrap steel.

So, innovative steelmakers turned to an oldtechnique and brought it up to date. Electric arcfurnaces (EAFs) had rst appeared at the end ofthe 19th century. However, until the 1960s, theywere primarily used for speciality steels and alloys.

Now, with abundant scrap, EAFs were suited forlarger-scale production. Unlike a BOF, an EAFdoes not need hot metal it can be fed with coldor preheated scrap steel or pig iron. Te furnace ischarged with material and electrodes are loweredinto it, striking an arc and thereby generating highenough temperatures to melt the scrap. As with a

BOF, the process is quick, typically taking less thantwo hours. Moreover, EAF plants are relatively cheapto build, which was an important advantage forAmerican and European industries still recoveringfrom a world war.

Scrap recycling is very proftable and also helps reduce greenhouse-gas

emissions and conserve energy and natural resources


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ontinuous casting

In addition to these new ways to produce raw steel,new ways to cast (pour) the molten metal into mouldsemerged. Up to the 1950s, steel was poured intostationary moulds forming ingots (large blocks)that were then rolled into sheets, or smal ler shapesand sizes. In continuous casting, liquid steel is fedcontinuously into a mould in a conveyor belt typeprocess, creating a long strand of steel. As thestrand emerges from the mould, it is cut into slabsor blooms, which are much thinner than traditionalingots and thus easier to roll into nished and semi-

nished products.

Steels for every purpose

Producing raw steel and moulding it into ingots orslabs is just the rst step in industrial steelmaking.Tese huge blocks must be rolled to reduce theirthickness and form them into the required shapesand sizes. At this stage the steelmakers skill bringsyet more versatility to the metal.

Craftsmen in ancient times knew that steelsproperties depend not only on its chemicalcomposition, but also on how it is heated, cooled,

hammered and rolled. Modern steelmakers havemastered these processes to an amazing degree, withJapan being the chief contributer in the eld. oday,steelmakers can oer customers almost any set ofcharacteristics they request, from ultra-strong steelsto foils as thin as tissue paper.

20 E A EPAS, 1900-1970s

An Electric Arc Furnace (EAF)

Steel ingots, cast into shapes that are suitable or urther processing


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he continuous casting process

The molten steel can be tapped

rom the bottom o the ladle into

an intermediate container known

as the tundish. The temperature

o the melt is now below 1,600C.

Cooling continues

by quenching with water

along the whole o the strand.


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20 E A EPAS, 1900-1970s

The steel is glowing hot but has

solidifed all the way through when it

is cut into billets by means o oxygen

lances. The temperature is 1,000C.

Every billet is marked beore it is

placed on the cooling bed.

The open mould consists o

our water-cooled plates between

which hot steel slides. A solidifed

shell is ormed during casting.

The casting temperature is

around 1,540C.


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inished to perfection

Te complex task of rolling ingots or slabs beginswith roughing. Giant rollers make a number ofpasses to reduce the thickness of the material forexample, taking a slab down from around 240mm to55mm or less. Next come numerous nishing rollingsteps before recoiling. Ten the material can take anumber of routes, one being pickling to remove thescale, followed by cold rolling.

Both hot and cold processes make the materialthinner; they also transform the crystal structureof the iron and other elements in the metal. Tat inturn aects the properties of the steel. Hot rollingincreases ductility, toughness and resistance toshock and vibration. Cold rolling adds hardnessand strength.

However, adjusting the mechanical properties of

the metal does not end there. Often, steel will beannealed: that is to say, reheated to around 800Cand slowly cooled. For example, cold rolled steel hasbeen work-hardened, making it brittle. Annealingsoftens the metal enough to retain sucient hardness,while al lowing it to be formed into products such ascar parts. Other processes such as quenching (rapidcooling) and tempering (re-heating after quenching)provide further control over each grade of steelsprecise mechanical properties.

Finally, the steel may be coated to protect it fromrust and corrosion this is especially importantin applications such as shipbuilding, bridges andrailways where the metal can be exposed to heat,cold, salty seawater and rain. Hot dip galvanisingis widely used to coat steel with a layer of protectivepure zinc or a zinc-aluminium mix. For otherapplications, the surface may be pre-primed to takepaint, or treated for UV and scratch resistance, orgiven a dedicated treatment or coating from a vastpalette of colours that add functional or decorativenishes.

Hot rolling: A metal orming process in which metal stock is passed

through a pair o rollers

A crude-oil tanker


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alvanising innovation

Steel is used in hugely

demanding applications

rom shipbuilding to pressure

vessels in nuclear power

stations. It is also trusted

by millions o people to

keep a roo over their head.

Galvanised corrugated roofng is a amiliar sight

worldwide. Galvanisation has been known

since the 19th century, but in the 1930s, a

young Pole, Tadeus Sendzimir, invented a way

to galvanise steel in a continuous production

process. His Sendzimir Company also became

a world leader in cold rolling, and the steel skin

or the Apollo spacecrat was produced in one

o its mills.

20 E A EPAS, 1900-1970s

he mini mills transformation

Te rise of electric arc furnaces (EAF) in the 1960spaved the way for mini mills and a signicant changein the steel industry. raditional integrated millsbased on basic oxygen furnaces (BOFs) require ablast furnace to supply molten iron as input. Tey are

large and costly to build. Mills based on an EAF aredierent. Using scrap or direct reduced iron (DRI) orpig iron as input materials, they are generally smallerand simpler to build and operate hence the namemini mills. Tey can also be set up with a smallerlevel of capital, and that opened the door to a newbreed of entrepreneurs.

In Europe, German entrepreneur and steelmakinginnovator, Willy Korf, broke new ground in the steel

St. Johns Bridge in Portland, Oregon, USA, is a steel suspension bridge,

opened in 1931


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industry by establishing an EAF plant on an islandin the Rhine, near Strasbourg, France in 1968. Justa year later, Korf took the technology to the UnitedStates, setting up the Georgetown Steel mini mill inSouth Carolina.

Around the same time, US metallurgist Ken Iversonwas building Nucors rst mini mil l at Darlington,

also in South Carolina. oday, Nucor is one of thelargest steel producers in the USA, and one of theworlds largest recyclers of any k ind. Yet when KenIverson was asked to become its president, it was astruggling conglomerate in which the only protabledivision was the steel-girder making operation runby Iverson himself.

Within two years, Iverson had turned the companyaround, making it protable and a leader in its

eld. His faith in the potential of mini mills provedwell-founded and for the next 16 years, the companybucked the trend of the declining US steel industry,achieving rapid and consistent growth. Iversonbroke down hierarchical structures and emphasisedteamwork, performance-based compensation, sharedbenets and community involvement.

Tese innovations in management structures werealso matched by taking the lead in the developmentof mini-mill technology, which at the time wasundergoing a revolution. In particular, they movedmini-mill technology closer to the high-value end ofthe steel product range, producing high-quality atproducts from scrap feed materials.

Both Korf and Iverson were pioneers. Tey builtsuccessful businesses by using the latest technologies

White-hot steel pours rom a 35-tonne electr ic u rnace, Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp., Brackenr idge, USA


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ecycling ahead of its time

Mini mills are eectively recycling plants.

They take in scrap metal and convert it into

useul steel. Today, the impor tance o this

is clear, not just commercially but or the

beneft o the planet, as it saves the use o

natural resources/raw materials. In the 1960s,

however, the concept o sustainability wasonly just starting to emerge.

The question o how ar the planet could

sustain growing populations hit the headlines

in 1970, when a group o politicians,

academics and industrialists published

The Limits to Growth. Among the group

was Dutchman Max Kohnstamm, a ormer

secretary o the High Authority o the European

Coal and Steel Community. Although thereports fndings caused controversy at the

time, governments and industry bodies

worldwide now agree that manuacturings

uture depends on efcient, sustainable use

o energy and resources. It was complemented

by the Brundtland Commission report Our

Common Future, in 1987, which addressed

similar themes.

such as continuous casting and water-cooling tobe as ecient and exible as possible. Iverson alsobuilt Nucors prosperity on forward-thinking humanrelations. He introduced a compensation system thatrelied heavily on performance bonuses, promotingteamwork and company loyalty as well as increasedproductivity. Many companies have copied Iversonsapproach and his ideas are still being discussed in theboardrooms of steel companies around the world.

Hot steel spheres

Steel profle laser cutting

20 E A EPAS, 1900-1970s


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Steel is essential to the delicate, precise, labour-saving work conducted by production robots


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ED 20 E, SA 21S

oing for growth: nnovationof scale

While mini mills were emerging in the USA

and Europe, Asia saw innovation in scale and

throughput. Pursuing rapid growth in the 1960s

and 70s Japan, ollowed closely by South Korea,

developed massive state-o-the-art integrated

acilities. Tese generated high-quality at

products rom coils to coated and galvanised

sheets, targeted at sectors such as automotive and

appliance manuacturing.

Unlike older steelmaking countries, neither Korea norto a lesser extent Japan had a legacy of open-hearthfurnace production. Instead, partly due to a lack ofdomestic scrap, they advanced directly to innovativebasic oxygen furnace (BOF) technology, buildinggiant blast furnaces to supply the pig iron input.

Early adopters

Japanese producers also adopted continuous castingon a massive scale, further increasing throughputand reducing costs. Korea took the same path, andtoday virtually all its output is produced this way.At the same time, both countries seized on computertechnology as a means of managing their vastoperations. Fuji Steel introduced analogue computers

as early as 1962, and the microchip revolution of the1970s fuelled the use of electronics for process andinformation control.

With electronic technology, producers could handlecomplex scheduling and meet the demand for awider range of products as well as stringent qualityrequirements. Modernisation also changed workingpractices. Automated equipment meant plants weremuch safer and could be operated by smaller numbersof workers, improving eciency and reducing risks.

Established leaders

Although bueted by economic challenges insubsequent decades, Japan has retained its leadershipin steel production, being second only to Chinain volume. And by following a similar path indeveloping highly ecient large-scale integratedfacilities, Korea has also become a global player.In 2011, South Korean Pohang Iron and SteelCompany (POSCO) was the fourth largeststeel-producer in the world. oday, the products,technologies and expertise, particularly in continuouscasting, of both countries are sought after worldwide.

A cargo ship built o welded stee l has a lie expectancy o 25 to 30 years

beore being scrapped

A steel coil galvan ising production line


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ontinuing innovation

Old or new, Japan and Koreas companies

are commit ted to innovation. Created in 1970

rom the merger o Yawata Steel and Fuji Steel,

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metals can trace

its roots back to 1857. Now Japans biggest

steelmaker, it invests extensively in continued

process improvement and in ensuring

steelmaking plays its role in respecting the

planet.

In South Korea, POSCO began lie only in

1968 during the countrys rapid economic

expansion. By 1985, its frst plant in Pohang

was producing 9.1 million tonnes o crude steel

per year and work had begun on a second

in Gwangyang now one o the worlds

largest steel mills. Today, POSCOs global

manuacturing network extends to China, India,

Vietnam and Mexico, and even Japan, its

original backer in the 1960s.

Enter the entrepreneurs

Flourishing large-scale production in Japan andKorea contrasted with trends elsewhere. By the1970s integrated steel production in Europe andNorth America suered from outdated technology,over-capacity, rising labour and raw materialscosts, and competition from alternative materialssuch as aluminium and plastics. In countries whereproduction was nationalised, governments wereunwilling to invest against a backdrop of decliningmarkets, so equipment and processes failed to evolve.

As the 1980s progressed, economic conditionspresented challenges for large plants worldwide.But as the industry looked for a way ahead, a waveof innovation in mini mills and privatisation openedup new opportunities for steel entrepreneurs.

ini mills expand into new markets

Initially mini mills produced low-value rebar steel(concrete reinforcing bars). With small meltingchambers and input of scrap, they could not competewith high-quality products from integrated mills.

However, as the rebar market became saturated,mini mill owners developed ways to produce highervalue structural steel. In 1987, Nucor pioneered theuse of an EAF and compact strip production (CSP)

The invention o reinorced concrete in the 19th century revolutionized the

construction industry


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ussian strength

Despite years o lack o investment, at the

time o its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet

Union had overtaken Japan to become the

worlds biggest steel producer. In the 1990s

and 2000s, privatisation brought massive

investment in new equipment to speed

production and reduce costs. At the same

time, the rapidly growing Russian economy

o the 2000s coupled with neighbouring

Chinas economic boom created huge

demand, providing the Russian industry with

a vast export market and ensuring its place as

a top-fve global steel producer. Currently, the

top our steelmaking companies in Russia are

Evraz, Severstal, MMK and NLMK.

from German company SMS SchloemannSiemag toproduce sheet steel. By starting with thin slabs of just40-70mm, CSP dramatically reduced the time andnumber of rolling stages needed to produce steel asthin as 1mm. And for mini mills, it meant a cost-eective way to enter the sheet-steel market.

New technologies also enabled them to diversify intoa wider range of feedstock (not just scrap) and toexpand further into speciality steels. Tese technicalinnovations combined with the relatively low cost and

ease of start-up and operation, all helped drive globalexpansion of mini mills.

Privatisation brings added growth

At the same time, economic reforms brought newenergy to longer established parts of the industry.Many failing nationalised companies beneted fromprivatisation. Sometimes this led to consolidation,

but usually with an injection of capital investment inmodernising plants, processes and working practices.Although steelmaking remained mainly a nationalbusiness, consolidation rst started on a regionalbasis. In 1999 Koninklijke Hoogovens merged withBritish Steel to form the Anglo-Dutch businessCorus and in 2001 Acelaria (Spain), Usinor (France)and Arbed (Luxembourg) merged to form Arcelor inEurope. In Japan, JFE Holdings was formed in 2002from NKK and Kawasaki Steel.

ED 20 E, SA 21S

A large hot orange steel sheet be ing rol led in a steel mill

The Zhivopisny Bridge (2007) in Moscow, Russ ia, is the highest

cable-stayed bridge in Europe


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And then two examples of global consolidationcame with ArcelorMittal and ata Steel of India.Troughout the 1980s and 90s, the entrepreneurLakshmi Mittal built Mittal Steel, turning numerousloss-making nationalised companies into protableprivate enterprises. Its 2006 merger with Arcelorcreated the worlds largest steel producer, employingmore than 260,000 people worldwide. Te second

instance came in 2007, with the purchase of Corusby ata Steel.

nnovation and global connections

At the start of the 21st century, new technologiesare rmly established in the steel industry. Basicoxygen steelmaking (BOS) accounts for some 60%of global production of raw steel. Continuous casting,along with innovations in rolling and nishing, havebrought major eciency gains while reducing theindustry s demands on energy for heat and waterfor cooling.

Te uptake of new technologies reects the extensiveknowledge sharing between long-establishedplayers and dynamic new ones. Compact stripproduction (CSP) and a similar technique, in-linestrip production (ISP), are prime examples. CSP was

developed by Italian steel specialist Arvedi ISPwas the result of cooperation between MannesmannDemag (which later dropped out) and Arvedi, whichis now in partnership with VAI.

From these European roots, CSP and ISP arespreading worldwide, including to nations suchas India and Brazil. But expertise, innovation andinvestment ow in all directions.

The ArcelorMit tal Orbit in Stratord, London, Un ited Kingdom

Piercy Conners innovation or Indian apartments has made the previously

uneasible solar solution sustainable thanks to steel

Number 5 Blast Furnace at the Port Talbot Tata Steel (ormerly Corus)

Plant in South Wales, United Kingdom


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Koreas giant POSCO, with its eco-friendly FINEXprocess that is designed to meet the increasingly strictenvironmental regulations of the 21st century (withhot-metal quality equivalent to the conventionalblast-furnace process) is developing a major newplant, a joint venture in Brazil with Dongkuk Steeland Vale. Latin American producers, such as Gerdauand echint, operate mills around the world.

Tis is to name just a few examples, and newproducers are also emerging. In the rst decadeof the 21st century, urkeys steel production rosefrom 15 million tonnes to 29 million tonnes only

outpaced by China and India. It is now the worldsleading exporter of rebar steel for reinforced concreteand the biggest net exporter of long steel forstructural applications.

A hot strip mill r un-out table

Kathane Shopping Mall by Suryapi in Istanbul, Turkey

ED 20 E, SA 21S


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he in-line strip production

In-line strip production (ISP) integrates the

thin slab casting phase with the rolling stage. By

reducing a liquid strand core, a slab o 15-25mm

in thickness may be obtained, with the additional

benefts being that there is only a distance o 180

metres rom liquid steel to a fnished coil and the

production cycle lasts no longer than 15 minutes.


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he inz-Donawitz process

(D process)

The LD process is a method

used or refning iron by lowering

its carbon content to convert it

into steel.

ED 20 E, SA 21S

O2

Oxygen is blown into the iron,

and carbon as well as the

majority o other impurities

(such as nitrogen, traces o

phosphorus, sulphur and any

remaining gangue material) is

removed rom the iron to convert

it to steel that contains less than

1.2% carbon.

I scrap is added, certain

contaminants such as zinc,

mercury, cadmium, aluminium

and plastics are removed as well,

and end up in the dust collection

system in o-gas or slag, which is

tapped beore the steel is placed

into the ladle or its transer to the

refning station and casting.


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ata: uilding on ndias steel

traditions

Indias steel industry owes

much to Jamsetji Nusserwanji

Tata. In the late 1800s, Tata

believed steel could kick-

start Indias own industrial

revolution. While he did not

live to see his dream realised,

his prospectors ound an ideal location or

Indias frst commercial steel plant at Sakchi,north-east India, which began operations

in 1912. Tata also wanted to create a great

city or his workers to enjoy lie. Built by his

sons, that city called Jamshedpur in Tatas

honour is now home to more than 1.3 million

people, and is among Indias richest and

cleanest cities. In 2007, Tata Steel acquired

Anglo-Dutch manuacturer Corus. It is now the

tenth-largest steel producer on the planet, with

manuacturing acilities worldwide.

atams European connections

One of the BRIC countries, Brazil, is LatinAmericas largest steel producer and is the fth-andninth-placed exporter and producer, respectively, ofsteel worldwide. Following the end of its privatisationprogramme in 1994, many Brazilian producers joinedindustrial and/or nancial groups and, as part of theireorts to improve competitiveness, some steelmakersexpanded their activities into logistics-relatedbusiness, such as seaports and railroads.

Brazilian company Gerdau is

the largest producer oflongsteel in the Americas andone of the largest suppliers ofspecial steel in the world. Withproduction facilities in theAmericas, Europe and Asia,it was established by German

immigrant Joo Gerdau and his son Hugo in 1901.A true family business, Gerdau has been built onrespect for employees and customers. It is also the

leading recycler in Latin America, reecting theimportance of environmental responsibility in itsethos.

Te echint group, anothergiant of Latin Americansteelmaking, was set up in 1945by Italian engineer, AgostinoRocca. It was heavily involved inthe development of Argentinas

industrial infrastructure,including the construction ofa 1,600km gas pipeline from Comodoro Rivadaviato Buenos Aires in 1949. oday, enaris one ofthe groups companies is a world leader in themanufacture of seamless steel tubes, mainly forthe oil and gas industry. Another group company,ernium, is a major player in at and long productsin Latin America.


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he steel dragon

Steel production has always gone hand in handwith economic development. It is a fact much inevidence in China, one of the worlds most dynamiceconomies. Although steelmaking in China as inIndia has ancient roots, the industry was relatively

undeveloped until the second half of the 20th

century.Following the formation of the Peoples Republic ofChina in 1949, the government took steps to developan industrial infrastructure including new steelplants.

However, the industry only really took o followingthe economic reforms of the 1980s. Tese openedup foreign trade, triggering huge economic growthand massive expansion of steelmaking. By the endof 2011, China was by far the worlds largest steelproducer, with an output of just over 680 mil liontonnes.

Much of this production goes to support Chinasrapid urban development. Cities and infrastructureare expanding and being modernised at an incrediblerate. In a bid to make the country self-sucient insteel, the Baoshan Iron and Steel constructed a brandnew steel plant at Baoshan near the port of Shanghaiin 1978.

World Financial Center in construction, Shanghai, China (2008).

The design, using a diagonal-braced rame, employs an e ective use

o material, because it decreases the thickness o the outer core shear

walls and the weight o the s tructura l steel in the per imeter walls

Landscape o the modern city o Beijing, China

ED 20 E, SA 21S


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Steel for the ames

Shougang (Capital Steel) is one o Chinas oldest state-owned companies. Its Beijing plant, ounded in

1919, was originally built on the outskirts o the city but has since been swallowed up by urban growth.

In 2005 as part o a huge drive to rejuvenate the city ahead o the 2008 Olympic Games, the entire

plant was re-located 150 km away to a purpose-built island o the coast. The Beijing National Stadium

the so-called Birds Nest stadium built or the games used 42,000 tonnes o steel, making it the

worlds largest steel structure.

Many other new plants were also built and bythe mid-2000s, there were more than 4,000 steelcompanies in China producing 350 million tonnes.Yet this was sti ll not enough to meet the demandand Chinas steel companies have continued to grow.

In 2011, the biggest company was the Hebei Group.It produced more than 44 million tonnes of steel making it the second largest steel producer inthe world. Baoshan Iron and Steel (now known asBaosteel), was close behind with 43 million tonnes,ranking it as the worlds third largest steelmaker.Te company has some of the industrys most

advanced steel plants and specialises in deliveringhi-tech steel products for the automotive, householdappliance, shipping and oil and gas industries.

Stainless steel bearings


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An industry on the move

Te steel industry has seen its focus shifttowards the emerging economies, as theserequire a huge amount of steel for urbanisationand industrialisation. In 1967, when the WorldSteel Association rst came into being as theInternational Iron and Steel Institute, theUS, western European countries and Japanaccounted for 61.9% of world steel production.By 2000, this had been reduced to 43.8%.Tis trend accelerated in the 2000s, with the

rise of China and from 2011 onwards withemerging countries accounting for more than70% of steel use and production China nowrepresents around 45%. Tis shift in momentumlooks likely to continue with other developingeconomies, such as India and countries inAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) and Middle East and North Africa(MENA).

Loading o iron ore on an extraction site

Cityscape o Jakarta, Indonesia

ED 20 E, SA 21S


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The winds o change: Sustainable steel is set to play a major role in the lives o uture generat ions


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SEE DS DA AD E DEEPES

Sustainable steel

Steel is everywhere in our daily lives rom buildingsand vehicles to the tin can that conserves ood

saely or months or years. It is the worlds most

important engineering material. Nonetheless

producing steel is extremely energy intensive.

However, once produced, steel can be used again

and again. With a global recovery rate o more

than 70%, steel is the most recycled material on

the planet. Whats more, 97% o by-products

rom steel manuacturing can also be reused. For

example, slag rom steel plants is oten used tomake concrete.

Tanks to continuous improvement of steelmakingprocesses, it now takes 50% less energy to make atonne of steel than it did thirty years ago. Usingless energy means releasing fewer greenhouse gases,a key factor in combating climate change. Indeed,considered over its entire lifecycle, steel products canhave less environmental impact than products madefrom alternative materials such as aluminium orplastic.

Moreover, todays advanced high-strength steelsare stronger and lighter, so less steel is required todeliver the same structural integrity. A lighter car orcargo ship will be more fuel ecient, reducing theirgreenhouse gas emissions.

Steel also has an important role in the worldsgrowing infrastructure for renewable energy.

Te latest steels are enabling taller, stronger,lighter-weight towers for wind turbines, increasingtheir eciency and reducing the carbon emissionsassociated with their construction by up to 50%.New roong systems combine photovoltaic cellswith galvanised steel panels. Steel producers areeven working with the solar industry to exploreinnovations such as roong coated with dyes thatcan directly generate electricity.

At the same time, steel plants are cleaner and saferthan ever before. Improving health and safety is akey industry goal, with manufacturers continuallystriving to reduce accidents at work. As a result,the industrys lost-time injury frequency rate halvedbetween 2004 and 2009 the industry is now aimingfor an injury-free workplace.

o-operation on greener cars

A modern car consists o around 50-60%steel. Over the years, steelmakers and the

automotive industry have worked closely to

make cars stronger, saer and rust resistant.

Advanced high-strength steels can reduce

lietime greenhouse gas emissions o a typical

fve passenger vehicle by 2.2 tonnes. And

the industry is working to go urther. In the

1990s already, the Ultra Light Steel Auto Body

(ULSAB) programme showed ways to achieve

weight reduction with a body that ulfls orexceeds perormance and crash-resistance

at potentially lower cost. A similar programme

or electric vehicles, FutureSteelVehicle

(FSV), whose results were released in 2011,

revealed potential reductions to total lie cycle

emissions by nearly 70% compared to a

current benchmark vehicle. This was achieved

through 97% use o High-Strength (HSS) and

Advanced High-Strength Steels (AHSS).


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A steel future?

Steel has played a vital enabling role throughoutmuch of human history. It was the materia l of thehighest-prized tools in the Iron Age and the mostfeared weapons in the Middle Ages. It was thematerial that drove the Industrial Revolution, andunderpinned the economic development of countlesscountries.

But steel isnt just the material of our past. It will playan equally important role in our future.

Te world s population is increasingly urban. In 2010,around half of us lived in towns or cities. By 2050,it will be around 70%. o handle this migration,cities are expanding rapidly to become mega-cities.Building these mega-cities is going to take a lotof materials, not least of which is steel. Housingand construction already consume 50% of all steelproduced. As urban population densities increase,so too does the need for steel to build skyscrapersand public-transport infrastructure.

Te energy needs of emerging countries callfor continuing exploration and production ofhydrocarbons from conventional and non-conventional sources (shales) and from increasingly

demanding environments. Te steel industry isdelivering the necessary hardware with environmentfriendly technologies.

Elsewhere, concerns over carbon dioxide emissions,climate change and the availability of fossil fuels aredriving the demand for renewable energy sources.Steel is a major material for many of these includingsolar, tidal and wind power grids, and pipelines forwater, gas and resource management.

Spurred on by the growth of renewable energy,the steel industry is redoubling its eorts to improvesustainability. Great strides have been made in thepast 25 years. Carbon is a fundamental ingredientof the blast furnace process, and currently carbondioxide emissions are an inevitable if unwanted result of steelmaking. But will this always bethe case? Te steel industry spends 12 billionper year researching new processes, products and

breakthrough technologies reducing carbon dioxideemissions is a key focus, not only in the steelmakingprocess, but also by using steel as a solution to helpreduce emissions in other product applications.

We do not yet know where this research will lead,but as has been the case in history, innovations insteel will always play a critical vital role in helpingmankind meet its future challenges.

Solar power panels, Albuquerque, New Mexico, US. Steel bases are

used to ensure the panels strength and security

Hong Kong Central Business District, China. The steel industry is

delivering technology that is vital to emerging economies


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nnovating together

Steelmakers worldwide continue to improve processes and create new steels or new purposes.

Many have their own R&D organisations, but partnership is also a hallmark o steel innovation.

For instance, POSCO and Siemens VAI jointly developed the Finx process, a lower cost,more environmentally riendly alternative to traditional blast urnaces or producing hot metal. The

industry-wide FutureSteelVehicle initiative aims to bring more than 20 new grades o lighter weight,

cheaper advanced high-strength steels to the market by 2020. There is widespread participation in

programmes to reduce CO2

emissions such as ULCOS in Europe, Course 50 in Japan and theAiSiCO2 Breakthrough Programme in North America. And the industry is increasingly adopting a lie cycleapproach to increase efciency, re-use and recycling at every point o a products lie cycle rom raw

material extraction to recycling o end-products.

SEE DS DA & E DEEPES


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WESE

300 Wootz steel, employg a uque wdfurace drve by mosoo wds,s rst made ida. Also kow asDamascus steel, wootz s famous forts durablty ad ablty to hold a edgead was essetally a complcated alloywth ro as ts ma compoet.

202 - 220 ADChese of the Ha Dyasty createdsteel by meltg wrought ro wth castro, creatg a carbo-termedatesteel as early as the 1st cetury AD.

10 ADThe Haya people of ast Afr caveted a hgh-heat blast furacewhch allowed them to forge carbosteel at 1,802 C (3,276 F) some 2,000years ago.

10 - 9 ADCrucble steel, whch s formed byslowly heatg ad coolg pure road carbo (typcally the formof charcoal) a crucble, was rstproduced Merv.

1574The Cemetato process wasdscovered.

1784Puddlg furace, as developed byglshma Hery Cor t,rst used toree pg ro.

1857Hery Bessemer develops theBessemer coverter corporatgthe Bessemer process.

1865Frech egeer Perre-mle Marttook out a lcese from Semes adrst appled hs regeeratve furace formakg steel. Ther process was kowas the Semes-Mart process.

1874Wirtschaftsvereinigung Stahl, GermaSteel Federato, formed.

1884The rst steel-f ramed skyscraper, theChcago Home isurace Buldg, sofcally opeed.

1874ads Brdge, the logest arch brdge the world at the tme, wth a overalllegth of 6,442 feet (1,964 m) wascompleted over the Msssspp Rverat St. Lous, coectg St. Lous adast St. Lous, illos.

1890

The Forth Brdge Scot lad s rstmajor structure to be bult etrelyfrom steel.

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19012 March, sgature of the Uted StatesSteel Corporato, whch was the rstcorporato the world wth a marketcaptalsato of more tha $1 bllo.

1950itroducto of basc oygesteelmakg (BOS), whch lmtsmpurtes ad ca eve processold scrap metal to steel, lowergwastage ad creasg efcecy.BOS stll accouts for the majortyof steelmakg processes thedustralsed world.

1907Frst electrc arc furaces (AF)developed by Paul Hroult, of Frace

commercal plat utlsg the ewtechology s establshed UtedStates.

2008Steel begs tradg as a commodty

o the Lodo Metal chage.

1936Alleghey Ludlum Steel Dvso adFord Motor Compay create the rststaless-steel car. Alleghey Ludlumad Ford collaborated o two morestaless models; a 1960 Thuderbrdad a 1967 Lcol Cotetal

Covertble. Of the 11 cars orgallybult, e are reportedly stll use.

1967World Steel Assocato foudedas the iteratoal iro ad Steelisttute (iiSi) Brussels, Belgum o19 October.

1970Work completed o 256 metres (841feet) hgh US Steel Tower Pttsburgh.

The Steel Tower has a uque tragularshape wth teded corers.

2007The Wembley Stadum used 23,000toes of steel were used thecostructo. Aother dstgushgfeature of ts desg s the 134 metrehgh steel arch, whch s the logestsgle spa steel structure the world.

2007FutureSteelVehcle (FSV) projectlauched, a three-year programmeto develop fully egeered, steel-tesve desgs for electred vehclesthat reduce greehouse-gas emssosover ther etre lfe cycle.

2007Work completed o the Burj Khalfa,the worlds tallest steel-framedskyscraper at 828 metres (more thahalf a mle) tall, Duba.

For a complete view o the themes o The white book of steel,

please visit: worldsteel.org/steelstory

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el libro blanco del acero (ingles)

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