Production of Steel

1.       The Production of Steel

The production of steel is indeed a complex process which if not handled carefully can lead to accidents and the failure of receiving a good end product. The process of manufacturing steel is a long and tedious one that undergoes various procedures in order for the end product to transform into a fine and quality driven output. Provided below are the various steps explained briefly, about the manufacture of steel and its by-products.

i.                    The Raw Materials and the Coke Oven The raw materials used for the manufacture of steel are Iron Ore Pellets (i.e. small pebbles of raw Iron Deposits), Coal and Limestone (and Dolime in many cases). The coal is then converted to coke (tiny particles of coal) in the coke ovens. The impurities removed from refining the coal are usually sold in the market place as by-products. The newly refined coal is called ‘metallurgical coke’ or pure carbon. This metallurgical coke is used in the blast furnace while the limestone reserves are used to remove impurities.

  The Production of Steel

ii.                  Blast Furnace

This is considered a very essential part of steelmaking. The use of blast furnaces has been around for centuries.

Due to the drastic advancement in technology, the process of manufacturing steel has changed into a more sophisticated one. Many companies have different methods and techniques of manufacturing steel. After the iron ore is converted into molten metal by the Blast Furnace the output then undergoes a process called the “Basic Oxygen Furnace”. The basic oxygen furnace is a 300 tonnes oxygen converter. “70% iron and 30% recycled steel are mixed with other alloys in the 300-ton basic oxygen steelmaking furnace to create the metallurgical qualities which suit the customer’s end requirements” (METSOC, 2011). After the molten metal is converted into molten steel by the basic oxygen furnace it is then sent to the Steel Refining Facility.

iii.                Steel Refining Facility

The molten steel is sent in to the steel refining facility where the molten steel is refined into a fine and pure form of steel. This newly reformed and pure state of steel is then sent to the continuous casting plant to be converted into slabs of steel.

iv.                 Continuous Casting

The refined molten steel is poured into a casting machine to be converted into solid slabs of steel.

2.       A Brief study on the production of Steel in ArcelorMittal S.A.

ArcelorMittal is the largest manufacturers of steel in the world with 10% of the worlds steel production being produced by them (Fortune Global 500, 2010). Provided below is a brief study on the production of stainless steel in ArcelorMittal’s plant located in Paris, France.

a.       Stage 1 – The Melt Shop

The use of raw materials, mostly recycled stainless steel and ferro-alloys is converted into molten metal using an electric arc furnace with a melting capacity of up to 160 tonnes. The molten is then transferred to a converter. Alloying elements are added into the converted to obtain the chemical composition thus allowing the production of standard grades.

The ladle metallurgy consists of the addition of some alloying elements in order to obtain the similar chemical composition and the correct temperature before the continuous casting process. The produced molten steel is then poured, cooled and then solidified when undergoing the continuous casting process. During this stage, the maximum width of the steel is determined. The solid steel I cut with an oxygen flame into steel slabs that are up to 30 tonnes in weight, up to 12 metres in length, 200 mm thick and up to 2 metres wide. Some of the steel slabs are then ground in order to remove surface defects before being shipped to the hot rolling mill.

b.      Stage 2 – Hot Rolling Mill

This process takes place in the ArcelorMittal Chatelet and involves the reheating of the steel slabs in a furnace at a temperature of 1250 °C.  The first reduction of the steel slabs with regards to thickness is from 200 mm to 40 mm after several passes on the roughing mill. The thermal tunnel is responsible for maintaining the temperature of the steel slabs that are reduced in thickness.

The slab then is passed through a series of 7 rolling stands to reach a reduced size of approximately 3 mm in thickness. The metal is then cooled and wound to form coils or also known as “black coils” due to their oxidized nature and then shipped to ArcelorMittal’s annealing and pickling plant. ArcelorMittal also sells black coil to customers upon request.

Fig 2.1 Conversion of Steel Slabs into Black Coils

c.       Stage 3 – Annealing and Pickling

The Black coils are then heated in the annealing furnace. This step allows the recovery of the stainless steel. The oxides of the surface of the steel are broken down by shot blasting.

The pickling process in the acid baths followed by water cleaning and air drying results in the transformation of the black coils into white coils with no surface oxide; this is called the HRAP finish. At this stage, the white coils or HRAP coils can be sold in the market without cold rolling or further surface finishing.

d.      Stage 4 – Cold Rolling and Final Annealing

This stage allows the reduction of the thickness of the HRAP coil strips down to minimum of 0.3 mm to meet the customer’s final requirements for stainless steel. A final annealing provides the required properties for the use of the customer. The cold rolling process helps produce the flatness of the stainless steel together with an enhanced surface finish suitable for household appliances (e.g. Stainless-steel cutleries).

e.      Stage 5 – Metal Finishing

The end product is then slit to width and cut in to length also allowing for some specific surface finishes to be made. These metal finishing operations are carried out in ArcelorMittals’s production plants and through their network of service centres. The end products, according to ArcelorMittal, are 100% recyclable at the end of their life.

 3.       Reference(s)

METSOC. (2011). Steel Production Flow-Sheet. Available: http://www.metsoc.org/virtualtour/processes/steel.asp. Last accessed 11th February, 2012

Cable News Network (CNN). (2010). Fortune Global 500 2010: The World's Biggest Companies - ArcelorMittal - MT. Available: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2010/snapshots/11208.html. Last accessed 10th February, 2012.

ArcelorMittal . (2009). What is Stainless Steel? Manufacturing Process. ArcelorMittal Paris Stainless Europe. 1 (1-5), p1-5.

A Floating Island For Millionaires

Island for Millionaires!! Nah! The "Island for Millionaires" were already done way back before. Now it's the BOAT-Island for Millionaires! Its spacious, big and well has much more than one could imagine!

Population Control - Are they still considered 'Disturbing' words?

Just like every other day, I spend a few minutes of my time browsing through BBC News. Some days, I find articles that are worth my time and some days I don't. Now that I have a blog of my own, I am happy to announce to my dear readers that I shall do my best to keep you all posted on the blogs that some days are "worth my time" so it could be worth your time too - or maybe not. Either ways you will be reading something and hopefully will be able to pick something up out of the content and utilize it in your day-to-day 'conversational' activities. Let me start of with my first "worth-my-time" article for my blog.  

For most of you "gas-guzzling" machine users, did you know that one day a litre of petrol could cost you the same as buying a bottle of Jack Daniels at your favourite liquor store? Well, I may sound a wee bit too over confident about my statement, but I assure you my dear readers, my statement is not so far out from ones that are being reported today. This Business Reporter by the name of Richard Anderson from BBC wrote an article on the depletion of commodities in the near future. His article goes by the name of Resource depletion: Opportunity or looming catastrophe? and is an article I would suggest you all to check it out. Boring as it may sound to most of you (due to lack of aesthetics in the content) it is still an article worth reading and knowing a bit about the future state of our beloved planet.

In the article it says that, according to the United Nations, "We will need to produce 70% more food by 2050 to meet the demands of the world's massively expanding population, according to the United Nations". Massively Expanding Population? Yes, the UN is indeed correct. With the lack of global 'executioners' (such as the Black death in the 14th century or the World Wars) and the growth of prosperity through advanced technologies, development in business, rise in income, spread of 'modern' entertainment, the world's population is more succumb to the idea of comfort. The video provided below says it all. Look how fast the world grew from the Late 18th Century onwards until date. Isn't that just something we got to be worried about. My trip in India, allowed me to view things first-hand. In the city of Calcutta, there are 'Rickshaw" pullers with a Bachelors degree. The lack of jobs in many countries including developing one (Spain ~ 25% unemployed population) is proof enough why the world should not hate the words "Population Control" and cherish on the idea that China's one child policy should be accepted by most of the countries including mine. In my opinion, even the "One child policy" sounds a bit too lenient especially when you have more than millions of orphans scattered all across the globe. Of course, dear readers, do not take me for some radicalist or  a Nazi loving monster, all I am saying is, its about time we make peace with and decide to create peace for others. But then again, human nature is not one could convince with a blog but rather allow us to decide for ourselves. 

I reach my conclusion on this subject for today and would once again advice dear readers to look into the article by that Business Editor or any other article that talks amount commodity depletion and be the judge of  situation yourself then.

Article Source: BBC: Resource depletion: Opportunity or looming catastrophe?

Funny Gags

Talk about funny pics, this is hilarious. I remember when this guy came up with that invention and my friends were like dude, so What's next? "Electrifying undergarments" :) Well, anyways, hope you all enjoy this pic!

International Automotive Task Force (IATF) Global Oversight and its Core Functionalities

Abstract: The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) was initiated in order to provide improved quality standards of automotives to customers across the globe. The organization consists of some of the world’s largest and well-renowned automobile manufacturers in the world.

Introduction: The International Automotive Task Force (IATF) was formed in 1997. Its initial members were the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) from the United States, the Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) representing automotive manufacturers from Germany, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) from the United Kingdom, the Comité des Constructeurs Français d'Automobiles (CCFA) from France and Associazione Nazionale Fra Industrie Automobilistiche representing Italian automotive manufacturers. 

The IATF with cooperation with the ISO Technical Committee TC  176, developed the first internationally harmonized standard for automotive suppliers quality systems – the ISO/TS 16949. The ISO/TS 16949 was released in the year 1999 (Heinloth, Stefan, 2000).

 Formation: During the early 90’s, the automotive manufacturers around the world, created their own standards and set of requirements for their suppliers to improve supplier quality and provide better products. The Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) in the United States released their own set of requirements for their supplier’s quality systems, called the QS-9000. Automotive manufacturers from Europe developed similar standards for their supplier’s quality systems too such as the VDA 6.1 released by the Association of the German Automotive Industry (VAD). Similar standards were also released by the British, French and Italian automotive industry associations (Heinloth, Stefan, 2000).

The Automotive industry has since become a large and dynamic market globally. The number of competitors (including the rise of the automotive manufacturers from Japan and South Korea) and the mergers between automotive manufacturers had made it difficult for suppliers. These international developments would require many suppliers need multiple registrations to the various automotive standards created by the different associations. Hence, in the late 1990’s, the International Automotive Task Force (IATF) was formed.

 ISO/TS 16949: The ISO/TS 16949 was prepared by the IATF with close cooperation from the ISO Technical Committee TC 176. It was created to harmonize the country-specific regulations of the supplier’s quality systems. It is based on the ISO 9001 which specifies the basic requirements for a quality management system (QMS) that an organization must be able to fulfill in order to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide products and/or services that enhance customer satisfaction and also meet the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements (Tsim, Y. C.; Yeung, V.W.S.; Leung, et. all., 2002).

The aim of this standard is to improve the system and process quality in order to increase customer satisfaction, problems and risks identification and elimination and to examine taken corrections and preventive measures for supplier’s and manufacturer’s effectiveness (Kartha, C.P., 2004).

Importance of IATF: The IATF was established for four main reasons – 

1. The development of a decision in regards to the International supplier’s quality systems, primarily focusing on the direct suppliers of the member companies in the IATF. 

2. To provide a global consistency by developing policies and procedures for the IATF third party registration scheme.

3. To provide training and support for the ISO/TS 16949 standard requirements and the IATF registration scheme.

4. The establishment of alliances with appropriate governing bodies to support the IATF objectives.

Furthermore, the IATF’s development of the ISO/TS 16949 standard is a well-structured international automotive standard that heavily emphasizes on process-driven compliance to provide assurance to the control of the product and processes and to provide a quality management system (QMS) to serve as a foundation for day-to-day improvement. The members of the IATF are committed to the IATF vision of “A single global automotive standard and registration process”.

The IATF Member Organization Signatories  

1. Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG)

2. Associazione Nazionale Fra Industrie Automobilistiche (ANFIA)

3. Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) Group

4. Chrysler Group

5. Daimler AG

6. FIAT Group Automobile

7. French Automotive Equipment Industries Association (FIEV)

8. Ford Motor Company

9. General Motors (GM) Company

10. PSA Peugeot Citroen

11. Renault SA

12. Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT)

13. Association of the German Automotive Industry (VDA) 

14. Volkswagen AG 

IATF Oversight Offices: The IATF has six global IATF registration scheme administration offices located respectively in China, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and United States of America. These Oversight offices were established for the following reasons – 

1. To conducts office assessments and witness the auditing of the certification body

2. To provide support through the issuing of Sanctioned Interpretations (Sis) and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

3. Monitor timelines and accuracy

4. Monitor certification body activities

5. Provide support to third party certification body auditors

6. Handle application procedures for new certification bodies.

Reference(s):

1. Heinloth, Stefan. (2000). Good-bye QS-9000. Available: http://elsmar.com/pdf_files/Good_Bye_QS9000.pdf. Last accessed 28th

2. IATF Global Oversight. (2011). About the International Automotive Task Force (IATF). Available: IATF Global Oversight. Last accessed 28th Jan 2012.

3. IATF Global Oversight. (2011). IATF Leadership Commitment - 2011. Available: IATF Global Oversight. Last accessed 28th Jan 2012.

4. IATF Global Oversight. (2011). About IATF Oversight Offices. Available: IATF Global Oversight. Last accessed 29th Jan 2012.

5. Kartha, C.P. (2004). "A comparison of ISO 9000:2000 quality system standards, QS9000, ISO/TS 16949 and Baldrige criteria". The TQM Magazine Volume 16 (Emerald Group Publishing Limited) Number 5: 336.

6. Tsim, Y.C.; Yeung, V. W. S.; Leung, et all (2002), "An adaptation to ISO 9001: 2000 for certified organisations",Managerial Auditing Journal 17 (5).

7. Wikipedia. (2012). ISO/TS 16949. Available: Wikipedia. Last accessed 28th Jan