metal, alloy, glossary, definitions, metal, alloy, glossary, definitions
Reade Advanced Materials Presents:
Glossary of Metal Industry Terms
-A-
- Alloy steel: Steel with
modified properties that is made by combining iron with one or more elements
in addition to carbon. Alloys change the properties of the steel making it,
for example, harder, more formable, etc., depending on the combination and
amounts of alloys used.
-
- Annealing: The process
by which steel is heated and then cooled to improve its formability and make
its surface more durable.
-
- Arbitrage: Selling a
commodities contract in one market and buying a contract for the same
commodity in another market. For example, selling an LME contract and then
buying a Comex contract, or visa versa.
-B-
Backwardation: Market
condition where the spot, or current price for a metal is higher than the
three-month delivery price. This usually indicates immediate demand is
perceived to be stronger than long-term demand. Not considered to be a
"normal" market state (See Contango).
Bar: A shape of steel
that is available in different forms such as rounds, squares, hexagons and
rectangles.
Billet: A square form
of semifinished steel that later is rolled into a finished product such as a
bar.
Blast furnace: The
mother of the steel industry furnaces, it creates combustion by forcing a
current of air under pressure and obtains iron by the reduction of iron ore
with suitable fuel and fluxes at high temperatures.
Bloom: Larger than
billets, blooms are square or rectangular semifinished shapes that are rolled
into finished products such as beams.
Breakout: An accident
caused by the failure of the walls of the hearth of the blast furnace
resulting in liquid iron or slag (or both) flowing uncontrolled out of the
furnace.
Busheling: A widely
traded form of steel scrap consisting of sheet clips and stampings from metal
production. Bushel baskets were used to collect the material through World War
II, giving rise to the term.
-C-
- Call: an option, but
not an obligation to buy (See Options and Put).
-
- Carbon steel: Steel
that has properties made up mostly of the element carbon and which relies on
the carbon content for structure. Most of the steel produced in the world is
carbon steel.
CDA: Copper Development
Association
Charge, Charging: Terms
used for putting raw materials into a furnace. For example, a blast furnace is
charged with coke, coal, iron or scrap to make raw steel. The charge itself is
the amount of material loaded into the furnace.
Chromium: A steel-gray,
lustrous, hard and brittle metallic element that takes its name from the Greek
word for color--chrome--because of the brilliant colors of its compounds. It
is found primarily in chromite. Resistant to tarnish and corrosion, it is a
primary component of stainless steel and is used to harden steel alloys.
Clearing house: Part of
a commodities exchange that monitors buying and selling of contracts, matches
the buys and the sales.
Cold-rolling (CR):
Rolling steel without first reheating it. This process reduces thickness of
the steel, produces a smoother surface and makes it easier to machine.
Contango: Market
condition where the spot price is less than the three-month delivery price.
This is considered the "normal" market state because the costs of storing and
shipping metal are assumed to be higher in three months than at present (See
Backwardation).
Copper cake: A
by-product of electolytic zinc refining, usually containing a fair amount of
cobalt.
Copper, No. 1 and No. 2:
Generally, No. 1 copper consists of copper clippings, punchings and so on that
are clean and unalloyed, whereas the lesser-priced No. 2 should have a minimum
94-percent copper content. These items are known as "candy" and "cliff" when
traded internationally by wire. Comp solids refers to composition or red brass
scrap, solids being one thing and borings/turnings another (the latter
typically comes from machine shop production). It should be noted that ingot
makers often have their own specs for these scrap items, so what one could be
buying as a No. 1 could be downgraded to a No. 2 by another consumer. The
trading community uses these specs based on the Institute of Scrap Recycling
Industries, Washington, which publishes its definitions and is available from
any member of ISRI.
-D-
- Direct-reduced iron (DRI):A
metallic iron product made from iron ore pellets, lumps or fines that is
reduced (by removing only the oxygen) from the ore at a temperature below the
melting point of the iron. DRI is used as feedstock in electric-arc furnaces,
blast furnaces and in other iron and steelmaking processes.
-E-
- Electric-arc furnace (EAF or EF):
An economical method of steelmaking that is energized by an electric arc
flowing between two bottom electrodes. Furnace charges consist of purchased
scrap.
-
- Electrical steel: Steel
that includes silicon. The silicon content allows the steel to minimize energy
loss during electrical applications.
-F-
- f.o.b.: Prices denote
the so-called free-on-board payment, for material that a consumer or agent
will give when he picks it up at a dealer's dock. The f.o.b. prices are
usually less than delivered-to-works prices for the same items.
-
- Fabricator: A producer
of intermediate products that does not also produce primary metal. Examples
include brass, wire and rod mills, which buy copper and other primary or
secondary metals to produce brass and other copper alloys, or take raw forms
of metal and make building, magnet, telecommunications and/or industrial wire,
rod, and similar products.
-
- Ferroalloy: A metal
product commonly used as a raw material feed in steelmaking, usually
containing iron and other metals to aid various stages of the steelmaking
process such as deoxidation, desulfurization and adding strength. Examples:
ferrochrome, ferromanganese and ferrosilicon.
-
- Flat-rolled steel:
Steel processed on rolls with flat faces as opposed to grooved or cut faces.
Flat-rolled products include sheet, strip and tin plate, among others.
-
- Futures contract:
Legally binding agreement to buy or sell a commodity.
-G-
- Galvanizing: The
process by which steel is coated with a layer of zinc. The zinc coating
provides the steel with greater corrosion resistance.
-H-
- Hedging: Taking an
opposite position in the commodity futures market to your position in the
physical market.
Hex / Hexagonal:
Metal having six sides and six angles; six-sided.
Hot-rolling, hot-rolled steel (HR):
Rolling steel slabs into flat-rolled steel after it has been reheated.
-I-
- Ingot: Steel cast in a
metal mold ready for rolling or forging. It is distinct from a casting, which
is not rolled or forged. Ingots are usually rectangular, called slabs; square,
called blooms; polygonal, eight- or 12-sided for forging. Squares and
polygonal ingots can be fluted or corrugated to increase the surface area and
reduce the tendency to crack while cooling.
-J-
- Junk batteries: This
term usually refers to spent automotive lead-acid batteries, which are
purchased by secondary lead smelters. The standard form of shipment is in the
whole and undrained state to meet environmental regulations. Lead metal
constitutes around half the weight of a junk battery. Other parts, including
the plastic case, also are recycled.
-K-
No Entries
-L-
- Lanthanides: Commonly
referred to as 'Rare Earth' metals. Examples: Neodymium, Lanthanum and Ytrrium.
-
- Leaching: A process in
which metal is extracted from mined ore by means of adding a soluble
substance. Commonly used in gold mining.
-
- Liquidation: In
commodities market parlance, selling long positions to counterbalance previous
buying.
-
- Long: In commodities
market parlance, buying more futures contracts than you sell.
-M-
No Entries
-N-
No Entries
-O-
- Options: A choice to
buy or sell metal at an agreed-upon price for a specific date. You must pay a
premium (See Put and Call).
-P-
- Pickling: Treating the
surface of iron or steel with acid to remove scale, rust and dirt, preparatory
to further processing such as cold rolling, tinning, galvanizing, polishing,
etc.
-
- Pig iron: The product
of the blast furnace, when cast in a pig bed or in a pig-casting machine. It
derives its name from the fact that the channel or runner leading from the
furnace branched out into side channels called sows, and then into smaller
channels called pigs. Pig iron today is sold on chemical analysis.
-
- Plate: Wide,
flat-rolled steel. It is now generally accepted that steel more than 3 mm (1/8
inch) thick is plate and less than 3 mm is sheet (See Sheet).
-
- Premium: Cost of an
option and/or an amount added to a base price for a material, i.e. added cost
beyond the base Comex, LME and/or producer and manufacturer prices.
-
- Put: An option, but not
an obligation to sell. Nonferrous metal producers often buy puts to lock in a
price for their metal. It is akin to a price insurance policy. For example, if
a producer uses put options to lock in a price of 90 cents per pound and the
price falls to 85 cents per pound, he would continue to make 90 cents per
pound (See Options and Call).
-Q-
No Entries
-R-
- Refractory: A ceramic
material that can resist great heat and is therefore suitable for lining
furnaces. Fireclay, dolomite, magnesite and silica are examples. This is not
to be confused with refractory metals, such as columbium and tantalum.
-
- Reversing mill: Any
rolling mill in which the direction of rotation of the rolls can be reversed
at will. Heavy primary mills for bloom and slab rolling are the most common,
but others, including some cold-rolling mills, are also made to reverse.
-
- Rod: Rolled steel or
steel with a circular cross section can be a bar, a rod or a round, and there
is no generally accepted firm dividing line. Broadly, a rod is from 3/16 to
1/2 inch in diameter. Rods today are usually rolled in long lengths and
coiled.
-S-
- Scale: Oxide of iron
that forms on the surface of steel after heating.
-
- Semi-finished steel:
Steel shapes, for example blooms, billets or slabs, that later are rolled into
finished products such as beams, bars or sheet.
-
- Sheet: Wide,
flat-rolled steel. It is generally accepted that steel less than 3 mm thick is
sheet and more than 3 mm (1/8 inch) thick is plate (See Plate).
-
- Short: In commodities
market parlance, selling more futures contracts than you buy.
-
- Slab: A semi-finished,
hot-rolled section of flat-rolled steel, prepared for rolling down to plate or
sheet. It is generally more than 1 1/2 inches thick and more than twice as
wide as it is thick.
-
- Slag: a) The
non-metallic material forming a molten layer on top of the molten steel in a
steel furnace. It is made by charging suitable materials and plays an
important role in the refiningh of the steel. b) Loosely applied to any waste
material drawn off in molten form.
-
- Smelter: Facility is
used to extract metal concentrates found inside mined ore. The ore will often
contain more than one kind of metal concentrate and this facility also
separates them.
-
- Specialty steel: Steels
such as electrical, alloy or stainless steels. These generally are produced in
smaller volumes to meet the specific needs of customers.
-
- Spot material: Metal or
finished products available for prompt delivery.
-
- Strip: Steel rolled out
into long, thin, flat strips. Steel up to about 24 inches wide is strip or
narrow strip; above this, wide strip. The dividing line is sometimes said to
be 18 inches, but 24 inches is more generally accepted.
-T-
- Tailings: The
end-product or waste of ore mining, usually piled up in close proximity of a
mining area. Some will often contain some metal that can be extracted.
-
- Tempering: Also known
as drawing, the process by which steel or iron is softened by reheating it at
a considerably lower temperature than that at which its previous hardening was
done.
-
- Tinplate: Thin steel
sheet with a very thin coating of metallic tin. Used primarily in can-making.
-
- Ton, gross: 2,240
pounds. Standard measurement in steel scrap pricing.
-
- Ton, long: 2,240
pounds.
-
- Ton, metric: 2,204.6
pounds. It is often spelled "tonne" to distinguish it from other standard ton
measures.
-
- Ton, short: 2,000
pounds. Often called a net ton.
-
- Tool steels: Steels
that are hardened for the use in the manufacture of tools and dies.
-
- Trailerload, truckload:
quantities of commodities, including primary and secondary metals, that amount
to as much as 44,000 pounds each, which is the standard weight limit on U.S.
highways.
-U-
- Used beverage cans (UBCs):
scrap aluminum beverage cans, although sometimes applied to steel cans as well
(steel has a microscopic share of the beverage can market in America but a
much larger share in Europe and elsewhere).
-V-
- Vacuum degassing: A
process by which the amount of carbon in the steel is reduced by exposing
liquid steel to a very low vacuum environment. Carbon combines in the process
with oxygen to form carbon monoxide, which is removed in the process. The
result is a steel that contains lower levels of carbon and thus, has higher
formabiliy.
-W-
- Walking beam: A means
of conveying steel bars, billets, slabs, etc., across a cooling bed or through
a furnace. The material to be conveyed rests on a metal grid and a second grid
is arranged to lift up and move forward between the stationary grid, thus
lifting the material and "walking" it forward, before returning to make
another stroke.
-X-
No Entries
-Y-
No Entries
-Z-
- Z-mill: Common name for
a Senzimir multiple-backup cluster mill used for cold-rolling stainless and
carbon steel sheet or strip to very precise dimensions and fine finishes.
-
- Zinc galvanizers' dross:
A grade of scrap that can either be top dross or bottom dross, generated at
electro-galvanizing and continuous hot-dip plants serving the steel industry.
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