What is stainless steel? Steel – a carbon-iron, which receives during quenching great elasticity and firmness. In modern metallurgy steel is mainly smelt iron and steel scrap. How to get stainless steel? In the steel compared to cast iron contains less carbon, silicon, sulfur, and phosphorus. To get the steel from the iron to reduce the concentration of substances by oxidizing melting. In modern iron and steel industry, there are three ways to produce steel: open-hearth, converter (H. Bessemer construction or T. Thomas) and elektrostaleplavitelny.
Open-hearth steel making method is that the iron is melted in a special (open hearth) furnaces, which are stationary and oscillating. The essence of the converter method of producing steel is that in liquid iron, filled with a converter (vessel pear-shaped) bottom-blown air, thereby burning out the carbon and other impurities of iron. Finished metal is poured into a ladle and poured into a special form, called molds. This method of producing steel has a number of advantages: high efficiency (duration of heat 30 – 40 min), compactness and simplicity of the device, the lack of fuel requirements for the process. So the cost of converter steel is low.
But converter steel is not used for critical structures because of the high content of nitrogen in it, oxides of iron and phosphorus, which could affect its quality. If instead of air by blowing molten iron used oxygen they receive the same quality steel hearth below. Converter steel is used for the manufacture of wire, small building profiles, welded pipes, bolts, soft roofing and sheet metal. At elektrostaleplavitelnom mode of production, steel is produced in special electric furnaces. This method of production is currently the most common. Kinds of steel pipes are the following types steel tube: profile, seamless steel pipes, steel corrosion-cold-resistant, tubing and other steel pipes used in construction, engineering, shipbuilding and other fields.