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| Ladle | |||
| A “bucket” lined with refractory (heat resistant) bricks, used to transport molten steel from process to process in a steel plant. | |||
| Ladle Metallurgy Furnace (LMF) | |||
| An intermediate steel processing unit that further refines the chemistry and temperature of molten steel while it is still in the ladle. The ladle metallurgy step comes after the steel is melted and refined in the electric arc or basic oxygen furnace, but before the steel is sent to the continuous caster. | |||
| Lance | |||
| A long metallic tube through which oxygen is blown into the BOS vessel under high pressure. | |||
| Lead-Time | |||
| Delivery time for an item of inventory to be moved from a source location to a destination via a specific route. Detail is specific to the level of the location. Also the time to produce a customer’s order from order placement to shipment. | |||
| Legacy Costs | |||
| Any costs that are associated with prior operations. Employee liabilities (pensions and health care benefits) and environmental cleanup costs usually are included under this moniker. | |||
| Leveling | |||
| The process by which a leveling machine flattens metal strip, coil, or sheets by bending it up and down over the interrupting arcs of upper and lower sets of long, slender work rolls. Machines generally employ 17, 19, or 21 relatively small diameter rolls whose deflection under load is controlled by additional back-up rollers and a rigid frame. | |||
| Life Cycle Costing | |||
| An accounting method of costing where expenses are allocated over the life of the product. Life cycle costs are often lower for stainless steel than for alternatives despite a higher initial outlay, because stainless products generally last longer and require little maintenance. | |||
| Light-Gauge Steel | |||
| Very thin steel sheet that has been temper-rolled or passed through a cold-reduction mill. Light gauge steel normally is plated with tin or chrome for use in food containers. | |||
| Line Pipe | |||
| Pipe used in the surface transmission of oil, natural gas and other fluids. | |||
| London Metal Exchange (LME) | |||
| A metals trading center for the Western World. The LME also determines the metal price for aluminum trading for current and future delivery. | |||
| Long Products | |||
| Classification of steel products that includes bar, rod and structural products, that are “long,” rather than “flat.” | |||
| Low-Carbon Steel | |||
| Steel with less than 0.005% carbon is more ductile (malleable): It is capable of being drawn out or rolled thin for use in automotive body applications. Carbon is removed from the steel bath through vacuum degassing. | |||
| M sections (Bantam Beams™, Junior Beams™) | |||
| Light footweight beams primarily used in the construction of pre-engineered housing. These beams are produced in lighter footweights, usually six to ten pounds per foot, than traditional structural products. | |||
| Machining | |||
| Refers to performing multiple processes to a piece of metal to produce a customer specified component part. | |||
| Magnesium | |||
| A light, silvery, moderately hard metallic element used in processing metals and chemicals, and in alloying aluminum to give it desired metallurgical properties. | |||
| Man-Hours per Ton (M-H/T) | |||
| This is a measure of labor efficiency — the ratio of total hours worked by steel employees to the tons shipped for a given period of time. Changes in the inventory level and work that is contracted out will affect the reported measurement. | |||
| Martensitic | |||
| Small category of stainless steel characterized by the use of heat treatment for hardening and strengthening. Martensitic stainless steels are plain chromium steels with no significant nickel content. They are utilized in equipment for the chemical and oil industries and in surgical instruments. The most popular martensitic stainless steel is type 410 (a grade appropriate for non-severe corrosion environments requiring high strength). | |||
| Matte Finish | |||
| A dull or grit surface appearance achieved by rolling on rolls which have been roughened by mechanical, chemical, or electrical means to various degrees of surface texture. | |||
| Mechanical Properties | |||
| Those properties of a material that reveal the elastic and inelastic reaction when force is applied, or that involve the relationship between stress and strain; for example, the modulus of elasticity, tensile strength, and fatigue limit. These properties have often been designated as “physical properties,” but the term “mechanical properties” is much to be preferred. | |||
| Merchant Bar | |||
| A group of commodity steel shapes that consist of rounds, squares, flats, strips, angles, and channels, which fabricators, steel service centers, and manufacturers cut, bend, and shape into products. Merchant products require more specialized processing than reinforcing bar. | |||
| Metric Ton (mt) | |||
| A unit of mass and weight equal to 1,000 kilograms, or 2,204.6 pounds. | |||
| Mini-Mills | |||
| Normally defined as steel mills that melt scrap metal to produce commodity products. Although the mini-mills are subject to the same steel processing requirements after the caster as the integrated steel companies, they differ greatly in regard to their minimum efficient size, labor relations, product markets, and management style. | |||
| Molybdenum (Mo) | |||
| An alloying element used as a raw material for some classes of stainless steel. Molybdenum in the presence of chromium enhances the corrosion resistance of stainless steel. | |||
| Monel | |||
Monel is a group of nickel alloys, primarily composed of nickel (up to 67%) and copper, with small amounts of iron, manganese, carbon, and silicon. Stronger than pure nickel, Monel alloys are resistant to corrosion by many agents, including rapidly flowing seawater. They can be fabricated readily by hot- and cold-working, machining, and welding. Monel was created by Robert Crooks Stanley, who worked for the International Nickel Company (INCO) in 1901. Monel alloy 400 is a binary alloy of the same proportions of nickel and copper as is found naturally in the nickel ore from the Sudbury (Ontario) mines and is therefore considered a puritan alloy. Monel was named after company president Ambrose Monell, and patented in 1906. It is a very expensive alloy, with cost ranging from 5 to 10 times the cost of copper and nickel, hence its use is limited to those applications where it cannot be replaced with cheaper alternatives. Compared to carbon steel, piping in Monel is more than 3 times as expensive. |
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| Months of Inventory | |||
| Ratio of the end-of-period inventory to average monthly level of sales for the period. | |||
| Net Operating Loss (NOLs) | |||
| An income-averaging provision that allows companies with losses to either carry forward the loss up to 15 years to offset otherwise taxable future income, or carry back the NOLs up to three years to receive a refund for taxes previously paid (see FAS 109). | |||
| Nickel (Ni) | |||
| An alloying element used as a raw material for certain classes of stainless steel. Nickel provides high degrees of ductility (ability to change shape without fracture) as well as resistance to corrosion. Approximately 65% of all nickel is used in the making of stainless steel. | |||
| Nickel-Based Superalloys | |||
| Nickel-based alloys developed for very high temperature service where relatively high stresses are encountered and where high surface stability is frequently required. Typical applications are aircraft turbine and land-based turbine components. | |||
| Niobium | |||
| An exotic alloy valued for its strength at extremely high temperatures and its ability to superconduct, or pass electricity with minimal resistance, at very low temperatures. It is used in aerospace applications, in superconducting magnets in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) equipment, when alloyed with titanium, and in particle accelerators. | |||
| No. 1 Heavy Melt | |||
| Obsolete steel scrap grade, at least one-quarter inch in thickness and in sections no larger than five feet by two feet. Much of the metal comes from demolished buildings, truck frames and heavy duty springs. Mini-mills are primary consumers of No. 1 heavy scrap. | |||
| Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) | |||
| Label applied to the pipe products used by petroleum exploration customers. OCTG includes casing, drill pipe, and oil well tubing, which, depending on their use, may be formed through welded or seamless processes. | |||
| OPEB Expense | |||
| Other Postretirement Employment Benefits: Usually refers to health care obligations to a mill’s retired workers, although its meaning also can include layoff benefits (see FAS 106). | |||
| Open Hearth Furnace | |||
| A broad, shallow hearth to refine pig iron and scrap into steel. Heat is supplied from a large, luminous flame over the surface, and the refining takes seven to nine hours. Open Hearths, at one time the most abundant steelmaking furnaces among integrated companies, have been replaced by the basic oxygen furnace. | |||
| Operating Rates | |||
| The ratio of raw steel production to the mill’s stated capacity. Each December, steel companies report to the AISI their estimated capacity (if they could sell all steel they produced) for the following year, adjusted for any facility downtime. | |||
| Order Rate | |||
| The ratio of new orders recorded to the mill’s capacity to produce the steel to fill the orders. Many analysts view trends in the order rate as harbingers of future production levels. | |||
| Oscillating | |||
| A method of winding narrow strip steel over a much wider roll. Customers want to have as much steel on a coil as will fit in their machines, so they can spend less time moving the material and more time using it. By coiling the strip like fishing line (or thread) over a spool, a much longer strip can fit onto a coil of proper diameter. Oscillate-wound coils allow the customer to enjoy longer processing runs. | |||
| Peak Earnings | |||
| The ultimate earnings level of a company at the top of the business cycle. This is the expected profit during the time of the highest commodity demand and the strongest product pricing. | |||
| Pellets | |||
| Fine particles of iron ore mixed with bonding clay and roasted into hard round balls for blast furnace feed. | |||
| Pickling | |||
What? Why? How? |
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| Pig Iron | |||
| The name for the melted iron produced in a blast furnace, containing a large quantity of carbon (above 1.5%). Named long ago when molten iron was poured through a trench in the ground to flow into shallow earthen holes, the arrangement looked like newborn pigs suckling. The central channel became known as the “sow,” and the molds were “pigs.” | |||
| Piling (Sheet Piling) | |||
| A structural steel product with edges designed to interlock; used in the construction of cofferdams or riverbank reinforcement. | |||
| Pipe | |||
| Technically a tube is used to transport fluids or gases. However, pipe and tube are often used interchangeably in steel lexicon, with a given label applied primarily as a matter of historical use. | |||
| Pipe Threading | |||
| Cutting of threads around the circumference of the pipe. | |||
| Plate | |||
| Sheet steel with a width of more than eight inches, with a thickness ranging from one quarter of an inch to more than one foot (see Sheet Steel). | |||
| Powder Metals | |||
| Fabrication technology in which fine metallic powder is compacted under high pressure and then heated at a temperature slightly below the melting point to solidify the material. Primary users of powder metal parts are auto, electronics and aerospace industries. | |||
| Precipitation Hardening (PH) | |||
| A small group of stainless steels with high chromium and nickel content, with the most common types having characteristics close to those of martensitic (plain chromium stainless class with exceptional strength) steels. Heat treatment provides this class with its very high strength and hardness. Applications for PH stainless steels include shafts for pumps and valves as well as aircraft parts. | |||
| Precision Plate Sawing | |||
| Involves sawing plate (primary aluminum plate products) into square or rectangular shapes to tolerances as close as 0.003 of an inch. | |||
| Pulverized Coal Injection System (PCI) | |||
| A blast furnace enhancement to reduce an integrated mill’s reliance on coke (because of environmental problems with its production). Up to 30% of the coke charged into the blast furnace can be replaced by this talcum-like coal powder, which is injected through nozzles at the bottom of the furnace. | |||
| Punching | |||
| The cutting of holes into carbon steel beams or plates by pressing or welding per customer specifications. | |||
| Q-BOP | |||
| Modified Basic Oxygen Furnace in which the oxygen and other gases are blown in from the bottom, rather than from the top. While the Q-BOP stirs the metal bath more vigorously, allowing for faster processing, the design produces essentially the same steel grades as the top-blowing basic oxygen furnace. Today’s state-of-the-art furnace design combines the previous technologies: 60% of the oxygen is blown from above, with the rest blown through the bottom of the vessel. | |||
| Qualification Trials | |||
| The testing required for a new process adopted to make certain grades of steel with exacting end uses. In order for the process to become qualified, the steel made by the process must be tested. | |||
| Quench Hardening | |||
| A process of hardening a ferrous alloy of suitable composition by heating within or above the transformation range and cooling at a rate sufficient to increase the hardness substantially. The process usually involves the formation of martensite. | |||
| Reducing Agent | |||
| Either natural gas or coal can be used to remove the oxygen from iron ore in order to produce a scrap substitute. In gas-based processes, the iron ore is heated in a vessel as reformed natural gas passes through. In coal-based processes, iron ore is combined with gasified or ground coal and heated. The oxygen in the ore combines with carbon and hydrogen in the gas or coal, producing reduced, or metallic, iron. | |||
| Refractory Brick | |||
| Heat-resistant brick. Because its melting point is well above the operating temperatures of the process, refractory bricks line most steelmaking vessels that come in contact with molten metal, like the walls of the blast furnace, sides of the ladles, and inside of the BOF. | |||
| Reinforcing Bar (Rebar) | |||
| A commodity-grade steel used to strengthen concrete in highway and building construction. | |||
| Reline | |||
| The process of replacing the refractory lining of a liquid steel vessel. Once it wears out, the brick lining of a furnace must be cooled, stripped, and replaced. This maintenance can be significant because a blast furnace reline may require up to three months to complete. | |||
| Residuals | |||
| The impurities in mini-mill steel as the result of the mix of metals entering the process dissolved in obsolete scrap. Residuals are key concerns regarding the mini-mills’ recent entry into the flat-rolled market, where high residuals can leave sheet steel too brittle for customer use. | |||
| Reversing Mill | |||
| The stand of rolls used to reduce steel sheet or plate by passing the steel back and forth between the rolls; the gap between the rolls is reduced after each pass. | |||
| Rod | |||
| Round, thin semi-finished steel length that is rolled from a billet and coiled for further processing. Rod is commonly drawn into wire products or used to make bolts and nails. Rod trains (rolling facilities) can run as fast as 20,000 feet per minute — more than 200 miles an hour. | |||
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