Abrasion resistance – Ability to withstand abrasive wear; wear resistance.
After-treatment – Heat treatment, cooling, leveling, etc., to give the steel certain properties; also galvanizing, painting and cutting to length.
Alloy – A metal consisting of several elements.
Alloying elements – Elements that combine with iron or other metals and change the properties of the metal.
Analysis – Chemical composition.
Annealing – Heating to a temperature above 680°C.
Application – Field of application; a product for which a certain grade of steel is used.
Applications engineers – Trained specialists in the properties and applications of materials; problem solvers and developers.
Blast air – Heated air that is blown into the blast furnace at high pressure.
Brand – Various SSAB product names, with origin and bearers of different material properties.
Burden – The contents of a blast furnace and the supply of raw materials, ore pellets, limestone, coke, coal and other materials.
Business area – Part of the market.
Bustle pipe – Pipe around the blast furnace through which blast air is supplied and distributed.
Carbon dioxide – CO2, colorless gasContent in the atmosphere is 0.03 percent and is one of the greenhouse gases.
Carbon monoxide – CO, colorless and odorless gas that is toxic and burns with a blue flame. On combustion, carbon monoxide forms carbon dioxide.
Coil box – Mandrelless coiler for coiling and uncoiling transfer bars (intermediate product) in the production process for flat steel products, i.e., in the hot strip mill.
Coiling, coiler – Machine that receives strip from the hot rolling mill and rolls it into a coil.
Coke – A hard, porous material that is primarily pure carbon and is produced by carbonizing coal in an oven to drive off volatile elements.
Cold rolling – Procedure whereby the thickness of hot rolled plate is reduced without prior heating.
Continuous casting – Method of casting steel in long strands that are then cut into slabs.
Contractor – Company that has been retained on contract for a certain task.
Cowpers – Heaters; ceramic towers used for heating the blast air.
Crude steel – iron that has been decarburized to remove part of the carbon in the molten metal but that has not yet been refined into a definite steel grade.
Customer – A company that buys a product or a service from a supplier.
Cutting station – Station in which the steel strand is cut into slabs.
Decarburizing – Removal of some of the carbon from molten iron in order to make the material more ductile.
Desulphurization – Method used for removing sulphur from the molten metal, e.g., by the addition of carbide or magnesium oxide.
District heating power plant – Combined heat and power (CHP) plant – power plant that generates both electric power and heat for district heating or other heat consumers. Comprises steam turbines that drive electric generators. The steam exhausted by the turbines is used to heat the water for district heating.
District heating system – System that supplies hot water to communities from a central heat source and distributes it through hot water pipes to consumers. Can use different energy sources, such as process gases from SSAB.
Dry distillation process – Driving off volatile elements in the absence of oxygen.
Dust filter – Filter for gas or air in which the dust is separated and possibly collected for recovery.
Electric steelworks – Plant that uses electricity to melt iron and steel.
Fatigue – A phenomenon that leads to fracture of a metal subjected to repeated or fluctuating stresses.
Four-high rolling mill – A machine comprising four rolls that exert very high forces to reduce the thickness of slabs to plate in a number of passes back and forth between the rolls.
Greenhouse gases – Gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, which absorb infrared radiation, slow down the outward thermal radiation into space and make our planet warmer. Greenhouse gases include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, ozone and chlorofluorocarbons.
Hardening – Quenching of steel in order to make it harder (by putting to use the differences in molecular structure of the various phases and their crystalline structure).
Hearth – The lower part of the blast furnace in which the molten metal is collected.
Heat – Hot but solidified steel in the course of processing (rolling).
Heavy plate – Thick plate ranging in thickness from 4 mm to 150 mm.
Hematite – Non-magnetic iron ore (Fe2O3); bloodstone.
High strength steels – Very strong steels able to withstand high loads before failure. SSAB niche products are very strong steels, sometimes known as extra-high or ultra-high strength steels or advanced high strength steels. Steels that are not high strength steels are known as mild steels.
Hot-dip galvanizing – Method of applying a coat of molten zinc to the surface of sheet steel. In electrogalvanizing, the process is electro-chemical.
Hot rolling – Technique in which slabs are heated in furnaces to a high temperature – just over 1 200°C – for rolling.
Injection coal – Pulverized coal injected into the blast furnace at high pressure without first having been converted into coke.
Iron ore pellets – Iron ore particles rolled into small balls and compacted by heating.
Kilowatt-hour – Power of 1000 watts applied for one hour (e.g., operation of a 1000W fan heater for one hour).
Ladle – Container for transporting or treating molten metal.
Ladle change – Change-over from an empty ladle to a ladle full of molten steel.
Ladle metallurgy – Technique for fine adjustment of the exact amount of alloying elements, cleanliness and temperature of the molten steel.
Ladle treatment methods – Various methods used for ladle metallurgy.
LD converter – (BOF converter). An oxygen steelmaking process named after the Austrian towns of Linz and Donawitz. Steel is produced in a converter with a solid bottom by oxygen being injected into the molten iron bath through a lance inserted through the converter mouth.
LKAB – iron ore mining company in the north of Sweden.
Electric arc furnace – a process in which an electric arc is struck between electrodes to melt the iron and steel.
Low-alloy steel grades – steels in which low contents of alloying elements considerably change the properties of the metal. At the other end of the scale are high-alloy steels that are often stainless steels.
Magnetite – Magnetic iron ore; Fe3O4.
Material design – Control of the chemical composition of the steel by different methods or by after-treatment to meet a certain requirement on a certain product.
Melting reduction process – Process used for melting and removing unwanted elements from metal raw materials.
Metallurgy – The science and technology of metals – a broad field that includes, but is not limited to, the study of internal structures and properties of metals and the effects on them of various processing methods. (At SSAB, metallurgy is everything that happens before the rolling mill area in the production line).
Millscale – Residual scale on the surface of the plate after hot rolling.
Mill stand – A set of two or more rolls in a machine. A rolling mill can consist of several mill stands.
Modulus of elasticity or Young’s modulus – Ratio of stress over strain, which shows how elastic a material is. (The modulus of elasticity of steel is around 2.1 GPa.)
Mould – A form that contains a cavity into which molten metal is poured to produce a casting of a definite shape.
Ore wagon – Railway wagon used for transporting lump ore, iron ore concentrate or pellets.
Oxygen lance – Tubular rod used for injecting oxygeninto the molten metal.
Pair of rolls – A pair of rolls used for rolling down the thickness of sheet.
Payload – The useful load that a vehicle can carry. If the deadweight or the truck is reduced by high strength steels being used, the truck will be able to carry an equivalent amount of extra payload and the number of trips for any given transport task will thereby be reduced.
Phases – Steel has different crystalline structures at different temperatures, and a number of different phases depending on the heat treatment, the amount of alloying elements, hardening, cooling, etc. The best known phases are martensite (quenched), ferrite (almost pure iron), austenite (non-magnetic) and bainite (hardened and tempered).
Pickling line – Process line that uses chemicals for cleaning hot rolled sheet and plate.
Process gas – Gas from metallurgical processes, often with a high energy content.
Process methods – Methods used for recovering raw materials and making products in a continuous process without interruption.
Process water – Water used for cooling or treatment in various processes. At SSAB, always subjected to treatment and can often be recirculated.
Quenched steels – Hardened or quenched and tempered steels. SSAB quenched steels are also high strength steels.
Recycling – Restoring used products or byproducts to a new cycle of production and use.
Reducing agent – Carbon or hydrogen used to remove oxygen from iron ore to produce iron and steel. Hot metal – molten iron with a carbon content in excess of 1.7 percent.
Rolling mill – Machinery used for rolling steel to reduce its thickness.
Roll pass – The number of times a slab or plate is passed through a stand.
Roughing stand – Two heavy rolls that press the steel plate to reduce its thickness before hot rolling.
Runner (for tapping the molten steel) - Runner with a ceramic lining for controlling the hot metal.
Scrap – Used material that can be recovered, such as steel scrap.
Sheet steel – Thin sheet with a maximum thickness of 16 mm; can be rolled down to 0.2 – 0.3 mm.
Side impact beams – Energy-absorbing beams fitted to car doors, for instance, to protect the occupants in the event of a collision.
Slabs – Slabs of steel used for rolling into plate.
Slag – A non-metallic material resulting from mutual dissolving of flux and non-metallic impurities in smelting and refining operations. Slag typically contains lime, silica, gangue from iron ore, ash from coal and coke, etc.
Staple industry – Industry that extracts and processes raw materials that are fundamental to the economy of a country.
Sintering – Converting iron ore powderinto a compact mass by heating to a temperature considerably below the fusion temperature.
Slab furnace – Furnace used for heating steel slabs to rolling temperature.
Steckel rolling mill – Four-high rolling mill with a roll holder at each end. The slab or plate is reduced in thickness on each pass.
Steel – Alloy of iron, carbon and other elements with a carbon content below 1.7 percent.
Steel bath – Molten steel in a container.
Steel commuter train – System of trains used for transporting steel slabs between Luleå, Borlänge and Oxelösund.
Steel slab – Raw material used for producing sheet steel or plate.
Strand – Thick strand of cast steel that is undergoing cooling as it leaves a continuous casting machine.
Strength – Ability of the material to withstand forces, e.g., tensile forces.
Structure – Shape of the steel molecules after various methods of treatment; crystalline structure of the steel.
Submerged entry nozzle – Ceramic tube that protects the steel against contact with atmospheric oxygen during casting.
Surface treatment, surface coating – Cleaning, grinding or coating of surfaces, e.g., by galvanizing and/or painting.
System boundary – The interface between a product system and the environment or other product systems.
Tempering – Heating to 200-500°C with the aim of making hardened steel tougher and less susceptible to cracking.
Tensile strength – The ability of a material to resist tensile forces (see Strength).
Torpedo car, torpedo – Cylindrical railcar lined with bricks and used for transporting the hot metal from the blast furnace to the steel shop (steelworks).
Tundish – Intermediate vessel used during casting to allow for changing over from one ladle to another without interruption in the process.
Ultimate tensile strength – The maximum stress that the material can withstand, i.e., the stress at which the material fails.
Vacuum treatment – Method used for removing hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen from molten steel under vacuum.
Wide strip mill – Hot rolling mill; rolling mill for wide hotrolled strip.
Yield strength – The maximum stress that the steel can withstand without sustaining permanent deformation. On being loaded to below the yield strength, the material will deform only elastically – like a rubber band.