Bundy tube, sometimes called Bundy pipe, is type of double-walled low-carbon steel tube manufactured by rolling a copper-coated steel strip through 720 degrees and resistance brazing the overlapped seam in a process called Bundywelding. It may be zinc or terne coated for corrosion protection. It is used in automotive hydraulic brake lines in cars manufactured in the USA since the 1930s.

A 1969 study by the SAE recommended the replacement of Bundy tube with 90-10 copper-nickel alloy UNS C70600 (Kunifer pipe) because of corrosion concerns.[1] Kunifer pipe has since been adopted by European automakers Volvo, Rolls-Royce, Lotus Cars, Aston-Martin, Porsche, and Audi.[2] Bundy tube still retains the advantage of higher rigidity, which means less volume expansion under pressure.

What?
The basic fuel consumed in blast furnaces in the smelting of iron. Coke is a processed form of coal. About 1,000 pounds of coke are needed to process a ton of pig iron, an amount which represents more than 50% of an integrated steel mill’s total energy use.

Why?
Metallurgical coal burns sporadically and reduces into a sticky mass. Processed coke, however, burns steadily inside and out, and is not crushed by the weight of the iron ore in the blast furnace.

How?
Inside the narrow confines of the coke oven, coal is heated without oxygen for 18 hours to drive off gases and impurities.

What?
Finishing mills roll cold coils of pickled hot-rolled sheet to make the steel thinner, smoother, and stronger by applying pressure, rather than heat.

How?
Stands of rolls in a cold-reduction mill are set very close together and press a sheet of steel from one-quarter inch thick into less than an eighth of an inch, while more than doubling its length.

What?
Changes in the structure and shape of steel achieved through rolling, hammering, or stretching the steel at a low temperature (often room temperature).

Why?
To create a permanent increase in the hardness and strength of the steel.

How?
The application of forces to the steel causes changes in the composition that enhance certain properties. In order for these improvements to be sustained, the temperature must be below a certain range, because the structural changes are eliminated by higher temperatures.

What?
A method of pouring steel directly from the furnace into a billet, bloom, or slab directly from its molten form.

Why?
Continuous casting avoids the need for large, expensive mills for rolling ingots into slabs. Continuous cast slabs also solidify in a few minutes versus several hours for an ingot. Because of this, the chemical composition and mechanical properties are more uniform.

How?
Steel from the BOF or electric furnace is poured into a tundish (a shallow vessel that looks like a bathtub) atop the continuous caster. As steel carefully flows from the tundish down into the water-cooled copper mold of the caster, it solidifies into a ribbon of red-hot steel. At the bottom of the caster, torches cut the continuously flowing steel to form slabs or blooms.

What?
COREX® is a coal-based smelting process that yields hot metal or pig iron. The output can be used by integrated mills or EAF mills.

How?
The process gasifies non-coking coal in a smelting reactor, which also produces liquid iron. The gasified coal is fed into a shaft furnace, where it removes oxygen from iron ore lumps, pellets, or sinter; the reduced iron is then fed to the smelting reactor.

What?
Operation that injects a chemical mixture into a ladle full of hot metal to remove sulfur prior to its charging into the Basic Oxygen Furnace.

Why?
Sulfur enters the steel from the coke in the blast furnace smelting operation, and there is little the steelmaker can do to reduce its presence. Because excess sulfur in the steel impedes its welding and forming characteristics, the mill must add this step to the steelmaking process.

What?
Processed iron ore that is iron-rich enough to be used as a scrap substitute in electric furnace steelmaking.

Why?
As mini-mills expand their product abilities to sheet steel, they require much higher grades of scrap to approach integrated mill quality. Enabling the mini-mills to use iron ore without the blast furnace, DRI can serve as a low residual raw material and alleviate the mini-mills’ dependence on cleaner, higher priced scrap.

How?
The impurities in the crushed iron ore are driven off through the use of massive amounts of natural gas. While the result is 97% pure iron (compared with blast furnace hot metal, which, because it is saturated with carbon, is only 93% iron), DRI is only economically feasible in regions where natural gas is attractively priced.

An accounting rule established in 1990 that requires companies to change their accounting for the cost of their retirees’ future nonpension benefits (life insurance and health services). What were once “pay as you go” or “cash basis” expense items were changed to an accrual basis. Such costs are now recognized during the employees’ working years.

When the steel companies shifted to the new accounting rule, most companies charged the “catch-up” to equity in large one-time write-downs as they established the new liabilities on their balance sheets.

An accounting rule for deferred taxes that requires companies to explain within their financial statements the difference between the tax expense found on the income statement and the check actually sent to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). (This rule superseded FAS 96 and APB 11.)

Some steel companies carry net operating losses (NOLs) on their balance sheets as assets that can be used to offset future taxes. Under the rules of FAS 109, however, a valuation allowance may be recorded to reduce these NOLs unless there is a high probability that they will be used.