| 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. |
| 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. |
| Blanking | (english) An early step in preparing flat-rolled steel for use by an end user. A blank is a section of sheet that has the same outer dimensions as a specified part (such as a car door or hood) but that has not yet been stamped. Steel processors may offer blanking for their customers to reduce their labor and transportation costs; excess steel can be trimmed prior to shipment. |
| 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. |
| Blister 2 | (english) A defect in metal, on or near the surface, resulting from the expansion of gas in a subsurface zone. Very small blisters are called pinheads or pepper blisters. |
| Bloom 2 | (english) A semi-finished hot rolled product, rectangular in cross section, produced on a blooming mill. For iron and steel, the width is not more than twice the thickness, and the cross-sectional area is usually not less than 36 sq. in. Iron and steel blooms are sometimes made by forging. |
| Blue Annealing | (english) Heating hot rolled ferrous sheet in an open furnace to a temperature within the transformation range and then cooling in air, in order to soften the metal. The formation of a bluish oxide on the surface is incidental. |
| Blue Brittleness | (english) Brittleness exhibited by some steels after being heated to some temperature within the range of 300 (degrees) to 650 (degrees) F, and more especially if the steel is worked at the elevated temperature. Killed steels are virtually free of this kind of brittleness. |
| Body-Centered | (english) Having the equivalent lattice points at the corners of the unit cell, and at its center; sometimes called centered, or space-centered. |