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Glossary

The Kallanish Glossary aims to be a useful resource for complex industry specific terminology. We are constantly adding to our glossary, so if you have a suggestion or amendment please do get in touch.
Alloy steel

This is a material comprising of two or more elements, one of which will always be a metal. Alloy steels are steels in which additional elements have been added to the usual iron, carbon, manganese and silicon that is present in ordinary carbon steels in order to improve their properties and performance. 

Aluminised sheet

This is a sheet steel which has been coated in a thin, hot-dip, aluminium-silicon alloy.  Although most aluminized coatings are applied to cold rolled carbon steel, sometimes they are used on ferritic stainless steels for example, in the case of car exhausts. Aluminised steel is often applied to ovens, furnaces, vehicle exhaust pipes and bakeware.

Annealing

Annealing is the term used to describe the process of restoring metal to its desirable properties after rolling and forging once it has been heated. In steel, the process is mostly used on cold rolled products – predominantly sheet, but also wire.

Back-up Rolls

In a rolling mill, back-up rolls exert force on the two rolls which are actually in contact with the metal being processed (the work rolls). The back-up rolls prevent the work rolls from bending under the forces exerted on them as they "squeeze" the metal passing through the mill into a new profile.

Bake Hardening

Bake hardening alters the properties of sheet in a car production line. The body panels are painted once they have been pressed and the paint is later cured by passing through an oven. Although the steel is already work hardened during pressing, it will be during the curing process that the arrangement of the atoms in the steel will change. The result is that after baking and cooling the steel has a higher strength than it did after pressing. 

Bars

Bars are long steel products of various different shapes, most of which are cross-sectional such as round, square, L-shaped (angle bars) and tees.

Basic Oxygen Furnace

The basic oxygen furnace converts iron from the blast furnace into steel. When oxygen is blown over the molten iron in a BOF vessel, it combines with and removes carbon as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Unwanted silicon, phosphorus and other elements are also driven off, while other impurities are combined with fluxes which are removed and then made into slag. The reactions in the BOF vessel creates heat, so ferrous scrap is added to cool it down. 

Beams

Beams are used to construct the supporting elements of buildings and bridges. These structural steel products come in various shapes.

Billet

Billet's are long, continuously cast semis. Similarly to blooms, they are cut-to-length after casting and are reheated for rolling. Billet is the starting point for rolling products like rebar, plain bar, merchant bar and light sections, narrow strip and wire rod. 

Bill of Lading

This is a document generated by a shipper that details a shipment of merchandise, giving title to the goods, and requiring the carrier to release the merchandise to a named party at the destination. 

Blast Furnace

The blast furnace is crucial for steelworks using iron ore as their principal raw material. The furnaces are tall and shaft-like structures which extract iron from ore in a continuous thermal process that produces molten iron (pig iron) for conversion into steel in a basic oxygen furnace. Iron ore, coke and limestone are the main inputs and are charged to the top of the blast furnace. 

Blooms

Blooms are large and elongated cast pieces of steel that are cut-to-length immediately after casting. After reheating, blooms are used to roll medium and large sections, as well as large profiles such as sheet piling, and rails. 

Body in White

Body in white refers to the stage in automotive design or automobile manufacturing in which a car body's sheet metal components have been welded together. This process occurs before painting and before moving parts have been added. Both hot and cold rolled steel coil, most or all of it galvanized, is used to fabricate the parts that make up the body in white.

Busheling

Clean steel scrap consisting of sheet clips and stampings from metal production. This is applied to thin uncoated clippings and stamping offcuts from manufacturing operations. Consequently it only applies to new production scrap, rather than scrap generated from obsolete used items.

C1 Cash Costs

The costs of mining, milling and concentrating, onsite administration and general expenses, property and production royalties not related to revenues or profits, metal concentrate treatment charges, and freight and marketing costs less the net value of the by-product credits.

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