steel (redirected from steeled)

steel, alloy of iron, carbon, and small proportions of other elements. Iron contains impurities in the form of silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, and manganese; steelmaking involves the removal of these impurities, known as slag, and the addition of desirable alloying elements.

Production

Steel was first made by cementation, a process of heating bars of iron with charcoal in a closed furnace so that the surface of the iron acquired a high carbon content. The crucible method, originally developed to remove the slag from cementation steel, melts iron and other substances together in a fire-clay and graphite crucible. The famous blades of Damascus and of Toledo, Spain, were made by the cementation and crucible techniques.

The Bessemer process, the open-hearth process, and the basic oxygen process are more widely used in modern steelmaking. The open-hearth uses a type of furnace called a regenerative furnace; instead of a firebox at one end and a flue at the other, it has devices at each end for the intake and outflow of both fuel and air. The air is preheated by a system of current reversals that causes very high temperatures. This process, developed c.1866 by Sir William Siemens, uses iron ore and pig iron. In the basic oxygen process, or Linz-Donawitz process, developed in the 1950s, the design of the furnace is changed, and oxygen added to the air intake permits more rapid refining of the charge (material in the furnace). The electric-arc furnace is another modern development; it provides a means of making large quantities of high-grade steel, with the advantages of positive temperature control, freedom from contamination of the product by the fuel, and simultaneous deoxidation and desulfurization actions.

Steel is shaped for commercial use in rolling mills, where successive passages of the red-hot ingot between variously shaped rollers give it the desired form. Pittsburgh, one of the world's great steel centers, built its first rolling mill in 1811; Bessemer steel rails were rolled in Chicago as early as 1865.

Types and Uses

Steel is often classified by its carbon content: a high-carbon steel is serviceable for dies and cutting tools because of its great hardness and brittleness; low- or medium-carbon steel is used for sheeting and structural forms because of its amenability to welding and tooling. Alloy steels, now most widely used, contain one or more other elements to give them specific qualities. Aluminum steel is smooth and has a high tensile strength. Chromium steel finds wide use in automobile and airplane parts on account of its hardness, strength, and elasticity, as does the chromium-vanadium variety. Nickel steel is the most widely used of the alloys; it is nonmagnetic and has the tensile properties of high-carbon steel without the brittleness. Nickel-chromium steel possesses a shock resistant quality that makes it suitable for armor plate. Wolfram (tungsten), molybdenum, and high-manganese steel are other alloys. Stainless steel, which was developed in England, has a high tensile strength and resists abrasion and corrosion because of its high chromium content.

Bibliography

See R. M. Brick, Structure and Properties of Alloys (1965); K. Warren, The American Steel Industry, 1850–1970 (1973).

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steel

Alloy of iron and about 2% or less carbon. Pure iron is soft, but carbon greatly hardens it. Several iron-carbon constituents with different compositions and/or crystal structures exist: austenite, ferrite, pearlite, cementite, and martensite can coexist in complex mixtures and combinations, depending on temperature and carbon content. Each microstructure differs in hardness, strength, toughness, corrosion resistance, and electrical resistivity, so adjusting the carbon content changes the properties. Heat treating, mechanical working at cold or hot temperatures, or addition of alloying elements may also give superior properties. The three major classes are carbon steels, low-alloy steels, and high-alloy steels. Low-alloy steels (with up to 8% alloying elements) are exceptionally strong and are used for machine parts, aircraft landing gear, shafts, hand tools, and gears, and in buildings and bridges. High-alloy steels, with more than 8% alloying elements (e.g., stainless steels) offer unusual properties. Making steel involves melting, purifying (refining), and alloying, carried out at about 2,900°F (1,600°C). Steel is obtained by refining iron (from a blast furnace) or scrap steel by the basic oxygen process, the open-hearth process, or in an electric furnace, then by removing excess carbon and impurities and adding alloying elements. Molten steel can be poured into molds and solidified into ingots; these are reheated and rolled into semifinished shapes which are worked into finished products. Some steps in ingot pouring can be saved by continuous casting. Forming semifinished steel into finished shapes may be done by two major methods: hot-working consists primarily of hammering and pressing (together called forging), extrusion, and rolling the steel under high heat; cold-working, which includes rolling, extrusion, and drawing (see wire drawing), is generally used to make bars, wire, tubes, sheets, and strips. Molten steel can also be cast directly into products. Certain products, particularly of sheet steel, are protected from corrosion by electroplating, galvanizing, or tinplating.

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steel

1. 

a. any of various alloys based on iron containing carbon (usually 0.1--1.7 per cent) and often small quantities of other elements such as phosphorus, sulphur, manganese, chromium, and nickel. Steels exhibit a variety of properties, such as strength, machinability, malleability, etc., depending on their composition and the way they have been treated

b. (as modifier): steel girders

2. something that is made of steel

3. a ridged steel rod with a handle used for sharpening knives

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Steel

1. Danielle, full name Danielle Fernande Schüelein-Steel. born 1950, US writer of romantic fiction

2. Baron David (Martin Scott). born 1938, British politician; leader of the Liberal Party (1976--88); Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament (1999--2003)