Steel is incredibly versatile used in everything from construction to appliances — in fact, worldwide crude steel production in 2021was 1,950 million tonnes. But how is this essential material created?

The process of steel manufacturing has evolved continuously since the industrial revolution in the 19th century. Nowadays there are several different ways of manufacturing steel, with the modern method simplified into 6 steps.

Let’s take a look at how it’s done.

1. Making The Iron

The base materials of iron are limestone, coke (fuel) and iron ore. These are placed together in a blast furnace and melted down to create molten iron. It still contains many impurities at this stage which causes the metal to be brittle so additional steps need to be taken to remove them.

2. Primary steel-making

Once the molten iron is prepared, the primary steel process can begin. There are two main methods for primary steel-making.

Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOS) mixes scrap (recycled steel) with the molten iron in a converter and oxygen is passed through this liquid solution at high temperatures to reduce the carbon impurities. 

Alternatively, the electrical arc furnace (EAF) method combines scrap steel and molten iron in an electric furnace at up to 1650ºC to form a purer form of molten steel.

Even though the material now looks like steel, it’s still a very low-quality substance, so it goes through another procedure.

3. Secondary steel-making

At this point, the molten steel needs to be treated to achieve the desired composition of the alloy. This is done by manipulating the temperatures or removal/addition of certain elements. There’s a variety of processes to do this including:

• Stirring
• Ladle injection
• Ladle furnacing
• Argon Bubbling
• Degassing
• Composition adjustment using oxygen

4. Continual casting

This is a crucial stage of the steel manufacturing process. It’s starting to take on more of the properties of steel but needs to be moulded and cast.

The molten steel is put into different casts to solidify as semi-finished products such as billets, blooms, or slabs. It’s then further refined in the rolling mill with guides that remove the thin shell and left to cool fully. The resulting shell is then cut into desired lengths and moulded into rough shapes depending on the application. These include:

• Billets for long products like bars and wires
• Blooms for sections including beams
• Slabs for plates and strips

5. Primary forming

Before final finishing, the slabs, blooms or billets are refined further with hot rolling. Hot rolling does not add or remove any materials from the products, but helps achieve the desired shape of the products and eliminates any cast defects without compromising on the quality.

After the hot rolling is complete, these newly formed products are divided into long tubes, flat products, seamless tubes, and specialty products.

6. Fabrication and finishing

In order to ensure that the steel is prepared for use, a final stage of manufacturing, finishing and fabrication are performed to give the steel its final shape and properties. Techniques include:

• Machining (drilling)
• Joining (welding)
• Coating (galvanising)
• Shaping (cold rolling/pressing)
• Heat treatment (tempering)
• Surface treatment (carburising)

Find A Steel Manufacturer Today

Steel is an incredibly versatile material that is used in a huge variety of applications all over the world. The process of manufacturing steel can be simplified into six steps, but getting the right materials for your project can be challenging.

At Australian Steel Traders, we can help you get to the source. We are proud to offer a range of high-quality steel products from an extensive network of reliable manufacturers in Australia and internationally. We also offer additional services for financing and delivery, creating a full-service solution for our customers.

If you need to find a steel manufacturer, contact us and our friendly team can guide you through the entire process.

Call (07) 3192 9668 or email sales@astraders.com.au today.