Searching
for a British supplier of cold stainless steel
and super alloy products who laser cut sheet &
slit strip in house proved to be challenging until
I searched in Everything
Within and discovered possibly the only supplier
in the world to offer a totally specialised service
to the gasket manufacturing industry.
Steel
for gaskets; construction and automotive;
super alloy is an un-sung hero in Britain's
industry, its corrosion resistance and ability
to be highly polished makes it an excellent
finishing product for both interiors and facades.
We
see it used as a cladding in the motor industry
too and despite its reputation as a victim of
rust as a result of corrosion, today's steel
can be protected against rust. We only need
to look at the extended warranties that are
offered by automotive manufacturers on the steel
car body panels. Hidden inside our cars engines
are gaskets made from steel, rolled so thin
yet strong enough to seal in high compression.
When you think that surgical knives for keyhole
and ophthalmic operations are made from stainless
steel and are only 4 mm long and 0.09 mm thick
- less than the thickness of a human hair.
Although
here are more than 3,500 different grades of
steel with many different properties 75% of
those have been developed only in the last two
decades. The steel industry divide steel into
two basic types; Flat
and Long. A flat steel product is a sheet or
plate, also a hot rolled strip product. The
typical end use these steel applications are
steel gaskets, automotive body panels and domestic
'white goods' such as fridges, freezers, washing
machines etc. Despite the modern examples here,
English poll tax records in Sheffield refer
to Robert the Cutler as being a maker of knives
in 1297 - Sheffield has always been famous for
Steel.
A
long product is a rod, a bar and typical steel
rod products are those such as reinforcing rods
for concrete; engineering products, gears, tools
etc. and large rolled steel joists (RSJ) that
are used in building construction projects.
Apart
from steels living uses, Steel can be recycled
and used again ... and again. Back in 2001 we
recycled more than 435 million tons of steel.
In fact steel is the worlds most recycled material,
65% of new steel comes recycled steel. Steel
from six recycled cars can frame a house that
would require timber FROM forty trees
The
Steel Industry Today
Strong
demand for steel led, EU steel mills to enjoy
healthy levels of export business in the first
months of 2003.
In
the first four months EU exports of rolled steel
products, excluding semis totalled 6.52 million
tonnes. Representing an increase of almost 20
percent of the 5.47 million tonnes that EU steel
mills supplied to foreign clients in the previous
January-April period.
This
rise was due entirely to a surge of over 1 million
tonnes of flat rolled steel products despatched
during that time.
The
rise in the value of the euro has effected the
British steel market with estimates for the
first half of 2003 year showing EU steel exports
at only 9 percent ahead of 2002.
EU mills may have lost some market share to
the USA, because of the decline in the value
of the dollar which has rendered American made
steel more competitive.
International
Iron & Steel Institute statistics for
steel shipments in the first half of 2003 show
the EU just 0.1 percent ahead of last year.
June 2003 showed EU steel shipments down by
more than 8 percent compared with the same period
in 2002 and figures for the whole world in January
to June showed steel shipments up by 3.2 percent
over last year.
Eurofer's
quarterly market report published in early
July suggested that EU steel exports will show
no growth in the second half of 2003 compared
with the 2002 period and is likely that EU steel
exports in July-December 2003 will show a fall.
This is based on the assumption that the euro
does not lose too much value against the US
dollar.
Steel
imported to the EU market will continue to grow
according to Eurofer. In the first four months
of this year, finished steel imports were 5.84
million tonnes against the 5.55 million tonnes
for January-April 2002. Eurofer
estimates imports rose by more than 11 percent
in the first half of the year, and it believes
this growth rate should slacken in the second
half of 2003 but this would still leave imports
nearly 8 percent higher for the year as a whole.
The
EU's traditional positive balance of steel trade
did fall into a deficit in 2001, however it
returned to a surplus of just over 1 million
tonnes in 2002. If Eurofer's prophecy for the
rest of 2003 is fulfilled, the EU's balance
of trade in steel products will acutely deteriorate
and the full year's surplus would be less than
500,000 tonnes, this may even be over optimistic
if the euro/dollar exchange rate continues to
erode the EU's competitiveness.
A
potted history of steel
"
I had an immense advantage over many others
dealing with
the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed
ideas derived from long- established practice
to control and bias my mind, and did not
suffer from the general belief that whatever
is, is right."
Sir
Henry Bessemer
Inventor
& Engineer
1813
- 1898
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A
British inventor called Henry Bessemer is credited
for the invention of the steelmaking process.
He was born on January 19, 1813 in Charlton,
Hertfordshire, England. Sir Bessemer developed
the first process for mass-producing steel in
an inexpensive manner. Although malleable iron
products had been around for more than 2,000
years, our steel is still produced today using
technology based upon the Bessemer Process of
blowing air through molten pig iron to oxidise
the material and separate the impurities. Bessimer's
industrial process was indeed very similar to
the Chinese method to refine iron into steel,
developed in the second century BC. They called
this process the "hundred refinings method"
because they repeated the process 100 times.
In October of 1855, Bessemer took out a patent
for his process of rendering cast iron malleable
by the introduction of air into the fluid metal
to remove carbon.
During
the Crimean War the Generals reported that the
cast-iron cannons used at that time were not
strong enough to deal with the forces of the
more powerful shell that Bessemer had invented,
so he rose to the challenge and developed an
improved iron smelting process that produced
large quantities of ingots of superior quality.
Modern steel is made using technology based
on Bessemer's process.
Henry
Bessemer made his first real fortune selling
"gold" powder made from brass as a
paint additive. The secret formula was used
widely throughout Britain and Europe to adorn
much of the gilded decoration of his time.
How
would our life be without steel? Did you know
that:
George W. Ferris in 1893 designed a Ferris wheel
for the Chicago Exhibition. Bethlehem Steel,
who are still trading today forged the axle
for the wheel; it was 13.6 m long, 0.8 m in
diameter and weighed 70 tonnes.
There
is a steel fence that stretches from South Australia
to Queensland - 5,530 km long to keep dingoes
away from sheep.
The
National Park Bank in New York holds the record
for having the largest vault door ever made.
It is made of steel and is 4.25 m in diameter,
0.75 m thick and weighs 80 tonnes.
The oil pipeline that runs FROM the Caspian
Sea to the oil port of Novorossiisk in Northern
Russia is made of steel pipe 1.6 m in diameter.
It is 1,500 kilometres long.
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