| Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) | (english) "WHAT A pear-shaped furnace, lined with refractory bricks, that refines molten iron from the blast furnace and scrap into steel. Up to 30% of the charge into the BOF can be scrap, with hot metal accounting for the rest. WHY BOFs, which can refine a heat (batch) of steel in less than 45 minutes, replaced open-hearth furnaces in the 1950s; the latter required five to six hours to process the metal. The BOF's rapid operation, lower cost and ease of control give it a distinct advantage over previous methods. HOW Scrap is dumped into the furnace vessel, followed by the hot metal from the blast furnace. A lance is lowered from above, through which blows a high-pressure stream of oxygen to cause chemical reactions that separate impurities as fumes or slag. Once refined, the liquid steel and slag are poured into separate containers. " |
| Batch Anneal | (english) The process by which a large, stationary stack of steel coils (4 coils high) is subjected to a long heat-treating cycle. This process enables the cold-rolled sheet to fully recrystallize into the softest possible product conforming to customer specifications. Controlling the recrystallization process makes a fine-grained microstructure easy to obtain, and minimizes the tendencies for retention of directional properties of the rolled steel which could produce undesirable shapes in the stamping of a cylindrical part such as a can. Also see Anneal and Continuous Anneal. |
| Bentonite | (english) A colloidal clay derived from volcanic ash and employed as a binder in connection with synthetic sands, or added to ordinary natural (clay-bonded) sands where extra strength is required. |
| 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. |
| Blocker | (english) Preform die or impression, used when part cannot be made in a single operation. |
| Blow Down | (english) Process that rids boiler feed water of solids and maintains the proper chemical balance of the feed water. Blow down can also be used to rid drum(s) of excess water. |
| Butyl Stearate | (english) (BSO)A lubricant applied on electrolytic chromium coated steel |
| Zinc | (english) Chemical Symbol Zn. Element No. 30 of the periodic system; atomic weight 65.38. Blue-white metal; when pure, malleable and ductile even at ordinary temperatures; melting point 787 (degrees) F.; boiling point 1665 (degrees) F., specific gravity 7.14. Can be electrodeposited; it is extensively used as a coating for steel and sheet zinc finds many outlets, such as dry batteries, etc. Zinc-base alloys are of great importance in die casting. Its most important alloy is brass. |
| Component (of a vector): | (english) Any vector can be expressed as a collection of vectors whose sum is equal to the original vector. Each vector in this collection is a component of the original vector. It is common to express a vector in terms of components which are parallel to the x and y axes. |