STEEL IN INDUSTRIAL

CONSTRUCTION

JYOTI CHAURASIYA
PRIYANKA
SIDDHARTH AGARWAL
ZEENAT PARVEEN
 What is steel??
• Steel, alloy of iron and carbon in which the carbon content ranges up to 2 percent
(with a higher carbon content, the material is defined as cast iron).
• By far the most widely used material for building the world’s infrastructure and
industries, it is used to fabricate everything from sewing needles to oil tankers.
• In addition, the tools required to build and manufacture such articles are also
made of steel.
• The main reasons for the popularity of steel are the relatively low cost of making,
forming, and processing it, the abundance of its two raw materials (iron ore and
scrap), and its unparalleled range of mechanical properties.
• There are many different types of steel classified on the basis of the type of metal
used and the percentage content of the metal in the particular type of steel.
Manufacturing of steel
1. Ironmaking: In the first step, the raw inputs iron ore, coke, and lime are melted in
a blast furnace. The resulting molten iron - also referred to as 'hot metal' - still
contains 4-4.5% carbon and other impurities that make it brittle.
2. Primary Steelmaking: Primary steelmaking methods differ between BOS and EAF
methods. BOS methods add recycled scrap steel to the molten iron in a converter. At
high temperatures, oxygen is blown through the metal, which reduces the carbon
content to between 0-1.5%. EAF methods, alternatively, feed recycled steel scrap
through use high power electric arcs (temperatures up to 1650°C) to melt the metal
and convert it to high-quality steel.
3. Secondary Steelmaking: Secondary steelmaking involves treating the molten steel
produced from both BOS and EAF routes to adjust the steel composition. This is
done by adding or removing certain elements and/or manipulating the temperature
and production environment. Depending on the types of steel required, the following
secondary steelmaking processes can be used:
• Stirring
• ladle furnace
• ladle injection
• degassing
• CAS-OB(Composition Adjustment by Sealed argon bubbling with Oxygen Blowing).
4. Continuous Casting: In this step, the molten steel is cast into a cooled mold
causing a thin steel shell to solidify. The shell strand is withdrawn using guided rolls
and fully cooled and solidified. The strand is cut into desired lengths depending on
application; slabs for flat products (plate and strip), blooms for sections (beams),
billets for long products (wires) or thin strips.
5. Primary Forming: The steel that is cast is then formed into various shapes, often
by hot rolling, a process that eliminates cast defects and achieves the required
shape and surface quality. Hot rolled products are divided into flat products, long
products, seamless tubes, and specialty products.
6. Manufacturing, Fabrication, and Finishing: Finally, secondary forming techniques
give the steel its final shape and properties.
These techniques include:
shaping (e.g. cold rolling)
machining (e.g. drilling)
joining (e.g. welding)
coating (e.g. galvanizing)
heat treatment (e.g. tempering)
surface treatment (e.g. carburizing)
 Classification of steel
Broadly steel is classified into four categories:
• Stainless steel
• Carbon steel
• Alloy steel
• Tool steel
Steel can also be classified by different systems depending upon:
• Compositions. Steel
• Manufacturing methods.
• Finishing methods. Stainless
• Product shape. steel
• The deoxidation practice employed.
• Microstructure. Carbon
Alloy steel Tool steel
steel
• The Heat Treatment.
1. Carbon Steels:
• Carbon steels contain trace amounts of alloying elements and account for 90% of
total steel production. Carbon steels can be further categorized into three groups
depending on their carbon content:
• Low Carbon Steels/Mild Steels contain up to 0.3% carbon.
• Medium Carbon Steels contain 0.3-0.6% carbon.
• High Carbon Steels contain more than 0.6% carbon.
2. Alloy Steels
• Alloy steels contain alloying elements (e.g. manganese, silicon, nickel, titanium,
copper, chromium, and aluminum) in varying proportions in order to manipulate
the steel's properties, such as its hardenability, corrosion resistance, strength,
formability, weldability or ductility.
• Applications for alloys steel include pipelines, auto parts, transformers, power
generators and electric motors.
3. Stainless Steels
• Stainless steels generally contain between 10-20% chromium as the main alloying
element and are valued for high corrosion resistance. With over 11% chromium,
steel is about 200 times more resistant to corrosion than mild steel. These steels
can be divided into three groups based on their crystalline structure:
• Austenitic: Austenitic steels are non-magnetic and non-heat-treatable, and
generally contain 18% chromium, 8% nickel and less than 0.8% carbon. Austenitic
steels form the largest portion of the global stainless steel market and are often
used in food processing equipment, kitchen utensils, and piping.
• Ferritic: Ferritic steels contain trace amounts of nickel, 12-17% chromium, less than
0.1% carbon, along with other alloying elements, such as molybdenum, aluminum
or titanium. These magnetic steels cannot be hardened by heat treatment but can
be strengthened by cold working.
• Martensitic: Martensitic steels contain 11-17% chromium, less than 0.4% nickel, and
up to 1.2% carbon. These magnetic and heat-treatable steels are used in knives,
cutting tools, as well as dental and surgical equipment.
4. Tool Steels
• Tool steels contain tungsten, molybdenum, cobalt and vanadium in varying
quantities to increase heat resistance and durability, making them ideal for cutting
and drilling equipment.
• Steel products can also be divided by their shapes and related applications:
• Long/Tubular Products include bars and rods, rails, wires, angles, pipes, and shapes
and sections. These products are commonly used in the automotive and
construction sectors.
• Flat Products include plates, sheets, coils, and strips. These materials are mainly
used in automotive parts, appliances, packaging, shipbuilding, and construction.
• Other Products include valves, fittings, and flanges and are mainly used as piping
materials.
 Characteristics of steel
1. Tensile Strength
• Tensile strength is the amount of stress that a substance
can take before becoming structurally deformed. The tensile
strength of steel is comparatively high, making it highly
resistant to fracture or breakage, which is a key point in its use
in infrastructure building.
2. Ductility
• One of the useful mechanical properties of steel, is its ability to
change shape on the application of force to it, without resulting
in a fracture. This property is known as ductility, which enables
it to be used in the making of different shapes and structures
ranging from thin wires or large automotive parts and panels.
3. Malleability
• Malleability is closely linked with ductility, and allows steel to be deformed under
compression. It allows this alloy to be compressed into sheets of variable
thicknesses, often created by hammering or rolling.
4. Durability
• The hardness of this alloy is high, reflecting its ability to resist strain. It is long-
lasting and greatly resistant to external wear and tear. Hence it is considered a very
durable material.
5. Conductivity
• Steel is a good conductor of heat and electricity. These properties make it good
choice for making domestic cookware, as well as electrical wiring.
6. Rust Resistance
• The addition of certain elements, makes some types of steel resistant to rust.
Stainless steel for instance contains nickel, molybdenum and chromium which
improve its ability to resist rust.
 Applications of steel
1. Construction
• Structural steel has multiple applications in the construction industry. It is used in
designing and building industrial spaces.
• Structural steel has a high strength to weight ratio which makes it ideal to use in
the construction of large structures such as buildings, warehouses, bridges,
factories etc.
• Beams, steel frames, columns, bars, girders, plates and many others are created by
structural steel fabricators which are used in the construction industry.
2. Transport
• Structural steel is used to manufacture trucks, transmissions, trains, rails and
ships, anchor chains, aircraft undercarriages, and jet engine components.
Most of these vehicles contain a good proportion of structural steel.
• Engineers and designers opt for structural steel because of its elasticity,
corrosion resistance, tensile strength, ductility, malleability, and affordability.
3. Mining
• The mining industry has many applications of structural steel. Most of the
elements in the mining infrastructure are built using structural steel. All
workshops, offices, structural elements of mines such as mining screens,
fluidized bed boilers, buildings are made using structural steel.
• Structural steel is easy to clean because of its smooth surface thereby making
it an ideal choice for the mining industry.
4. Ship Building
• Most marine vehicles are created using structural steel. It is used to make
supertankers, submarines, boats, ladders, steel flooring and grating, stairs and
fabricated sections of steel.
5. Packaging
• Steel is considered to be a good element for packaging as it protects the products
from water, air, light exposure, and contaminants. The steel used in packaging is
usually tin coated to prevent corrosion.
• Food, beverage containers, bottle caps and other closures are made using
structural steel. “Packaging steel is made of low carbon cold rolled steel strip, and
are surface finished.”
6. Energy
• There are many structural steel applications in the energy sector. Energy sector
comprises of wind power, nuclear power, electric power and natural gas.
• A lot of the industrial structures such as transmission towers, pipelines, wind
turbines, electromagnets, transformer cores, oil and gas wells are made using
structural steel.
• Apart from this, there are many other structural steel applications in the energy
sector.