| Bessemer Process | (english) A process for making steel by blowing air through molten pig iron contained in a refractory lined vessel so that the impurities are thus removed by oxidation. |
| Billet | (english) (1) A semi-finished section hot rolled from a metal ingot, with a rectangular cross section usually ranging from 16 to 36 in., the width being less than twice the thickness. Where the cross section exceeds 36 in., the term “bloom” is properly but not universally used. Sizes smaller than 16 in. are usually termed “bars”; a solid semi-finished round or square product which has been hot worked by forging, rolling, or extrusion. (2) A semi-finished, cogged, hot rolled or continuous-cast metal product of uniform section, usually rectangular with radiused corners. Billets are relatively larger than bars. |
| Billet container | (english) The part of the extrusion press into which the billet to be extruded is placed. |
| Binary Alloy | (english) An alloy containing two elements, apart from minor impurities, as brass containing the two elements copper and zinc. |
| Black Oil Tempered Spring Steel Strip (Scaleless Blue) | (english) A flat cold rolled usually .70/.80 medium high carbon steel strip, blue-black in color, which has been quenched in oil and drawn to desired hardness. While it looks and acts much like blue tempered spring steel and carries a Rockwell hardness of C44/47, it has not been polished and is lower in carbon content. Used for less exacting requirements than clock spring steel, such as snaps, lock springs, hold down springs, trap springs, etc. It will take a more severe bend before fracture than will clock spring, but it does not have the same degree of spring-back. |
| Black Plate | (english) A light weight or a thin uncoated steel sheet or strip so called because of its dark oxide coloring prior to pickling. It is manufactured by two different processes. (1) Form sheet bar on single stand sheet mills or sheet mills in tandem. This method is now almost obsolete. (2) On modern, high speed continuous tandem cold reduction mills from coiled hot rolled pickled wide strip into ribbon wound coils to finished gage. Sizes range from 12 to 32 in width, and in thicknesses from 55 lbs. to 275 lbs. base box weight. It is used either as is for stampings, or may be enameled or painted or tin or terne coated. |
| Blacking Hole | (english) Irregular-shaped surface cavities in a casting containing carbonaceous matter. Caused by spilling off of the blacking from the mold surface. |
| Blast Furnace | (english) 1) A furnace in which solid fuel (limestone, coke, iron ore) is combined with high-pressure, hot air blast (120,000 psi) to smelt ore in a continuous process (They are never stopped. They can be slowed down or idled). A Blast Furnace in the iron and steel industry is used to produce liquid iron. |
| Blast Furnace 2 | (english) A vertical shaft type smelting furnace in which an air blast is used, usually hot, for producing pih iron. The furnace is continuous in operation using iron ore, coke, and limestone as raw materials which are charged at the top while the molten iron and slag are collected at the bottom and are tapped out at intervals. |
| BLEED-OFF | (english) To divert a specific, controllable portion of pump delivery directly to reservoir. |