In the first part “ABCs”, we have provided basic terms that will help you better understand metallurgical production, in the second — described two dozen of the most important properties of metals. In this article, we will talk about the processes that result in the required alloy.
Annealing — a thermal cycle that includes heating and holding the material at a certain temperature, and then cooling at the required rate to reduce hardness, improve workability, facilitate cold pressure treatment, create the desired microstructure or obtain the desired mechanical or other properties.
Refinement — heat treatment, cooling, galvanizing, cutting to size to give steel certain qualities.
Heat treatment — heating and cooling a steel product to obtain the desired characteristics or properties.
Thermomechanical treatment — a production method that gives steel the desired strength and other properties through a careful combination of machining (rolling) and temperature control.
Galvanizing — protecting the metal from the onset and development of corrosion by applying a coating to its surface, the chemical composition of which can contain up to 95% zinc. It is carried out using various technologies (using hot, cold, galvanic, gas-thermal, thermal diffusion methods), each of which is used in certain situations and has both advantages and disadvantages.
Galvanization — the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron to prevent rust or corrosion.
Cutting — a metalworking process that is usually used to cut a wide steel coil into one or more narrow ones.
Formatting — cutting steel plates or sheets to the dimensions required by the customer.
Vacation — heating to 200—700°C to make steel stiffer and less brittle.
Shot blasting — cleaning and removing scale from metal using a jet of abrasive powder or shot. The shot can be sand, small steel balls of various diameters, silicon carbide granules and other suitable particles.
Sintering — a process in which iron-containing particles are combined into small granules.
Microalloying — adding a small amount of alloying elements, such as niobium, vanadium or titanium, to improve yield strength and tensile strength in advanced fine-grained ones steels.
Color coating (coating in rolls) — a process in which a cold-rolled strip is additionally coated with organic paint to improve corrosion protection and obtain a decorative, pleasant appearance.
Refining — removal of impurities from metals and alloys (usually at this moment they are in a liquid state) to improve quality. There are physical (liquation (zigeration), precipitation of intermetallic compounds, distillation or distillation refining (teasing)), chemical (selective oxidation and sulfidization, chlorination) and electrochemical (electrolytic refining — electrolysis of aqueous solutions or melts) refining methods.
Vacuum degassing — the process of refining steel using a plant that removes oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen under low pressure (in vacuum) to produce high-quality steel.
Continuous casting — a process in which molten metal solidifies into a semi-finished product, a blum (a steel blank with a section close to a square one) or a slab (a thick rectangular steel billet with a high width-to-height ratio (up to 15 units) for subsequent rolling.
In the next article, “The ABCs of Metallurgy”, we will continue the topic and consider what machines and tools are used to carry out the described processes and obtain materials with the necessary properties and high quality.
These and other terms from the metallurgical industry are presented in alphabetical order in the section The ABC of metallurgy.
