DEBRE TABOR UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
METAL PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY

By: Admas Tseganew

 CHAPTER TWO
RAW MATERIALS AND SEMI-FINISHED
PRODUCTS
 Finished goods are goods that have completed required
manufacturing process and are ready to be
fitted/mixed/processed with final product.
 The final product itself could also be called finished
goods. Examples: cars, clothing, food, furniture etc.
 Raw materials are materials that are in their natural state, before
they are processed or used in manufacturing. or
 A raw material, also known as a feedstock or most correctly
unprocessed material, is a basic material that is used to produce
goods, finished products.
Semi-Finished Products
 Semi-finished products are produced by the continuous casting of liquid
steel or by rolling or forging of ingots (a primary solidification of liquid
steel).
 Semi-Finished products are used in industry for the further production of
finished steel products.
 Semi-finished goods are processed raw materials not for final
consumption but as input for other goods’ production. We also call
them intermediate goods. We also call them intermediate goods.
 An example is aluminum alloy for making cars. Flour for making
bread is another example of a semi-finished good.
Slabs
 Flat rectangular semi-finished solid steel products from 160 mm
thickness and above.
Uses:
Slabs are used for the production of heavy machinery or for hot
rolling into other thinner flat products such as plates and coils.
Billets
 Semi-finished long steel products with a square cross section.
Uses:
Billets are used to produce numerous long steel products by rolling
or forging into other shapes
Classification of Steel Products produced in Steel Plants
Steel products in general are classified as
 castings,
 forged products,
 stamped products,
 cold formed products,
 welded sections,
 wire and wire products,
 pipes, tubes, hollow sections and hollow bars, and
 Powder metallurgy products.
Steel products produced in steel plants are classified as per
stage of manufacture of the product,
 shape and dimensions of the product, and
 The product appearance.
As per the stage of manufacture, the range of steel products
produced in the steel plants are usually grouped into three
main categories (Fig 1) namely
 Crude steel products,
 semi-finished steel products, and
 Finished rolled steel products.
Finished rolled steel products can be (i) hot rolled products,
(ii) cold rolled products, and (iii) coated products.
Crude steel products

Crude steel products are either in the liquid state or in solid
state.

Liquid steel is normally used for the production steel castings.

Crude steel in solid form was earlier considered as steel ingots
which are produced by pouring liquid steel into iron moulds of
a shape appropriate to the subsequent processing into semi-
finished or finished steel products normally by hot rolling or
forging.

The shape of steel ingots usually resembles a truncated
pyramid or truncated cone with the side surfaces may be
corrugated and the corners more or less rounded.

Steel ingots may be dressed and/or hot scarfed or cropped
depending on the subsequent conversion requirements.
 Steel ingots can be distinguished based on their cross
sections as
 (i) having a cross-section which can be square,
rectangular (of width less than twice the thickness),
polygonal, round, oval or shaped according to the profile
to be rolled,
 (ii) slab ingots having rectangular cross section with
width twice the thickness or over and
 (iii) pencil ingots which are generally having a cross
section of less than 150 mm square and which can be
rolled directly into products.
 Semi-finished steel products
 Semi-finished products are produced either by rolling or
forging of ingots or by continuous casting, and normally
are intended for conversion into finished steel products
by rolling or forging.
 Their cross-section can be of various shapes with the
cross-sectional dimensions remaining constant along the
length.
 Semi-finished steel products have wider tolerances than
those of the corresponding finished products, and the
corners are more or less rounded.
The semi-finished products can be further
classified according to their shape, their cross-
sectional dimensions and their use.
Semi-finished products of square cross-section
are generally categorizes as
 (i) blooms,
 (ii) billets,
 (iii) slabs,
 (iv) blanks for sections, and
 (v) round blooms.
Blooms can have a cross section either square or rectangular. Blooms
with square cross section have sides greater than 160 mm.
Rectangular blooms have a cross-sectional area greater than 25,600 sq
mm and have a ratio of width to thickness greater than 1 and less than
2.
Billets are normally square and have side which is equal to or greater
than 60 mm and equal to and less than 160 mm.
Slabs are flat semi-finished products of thickness generally equal to or
greater than 150 mm and with a ratio of width to thickness greater
than 2.
Blanks for sections are semi-finished products which intended for the
manufacture of sections and which have a rough shape of the section.
 The cross-sectional area of the blanks for sections is normally greater
than 25,600 sq mm.
Round blooms are the semi-finished products normally used in the
manufacture of seamless pipes.
Rolled finished products
Rolled finished products are the products which have been
manufactured usually by rolling and which are normally not
further hot worked in the steel plant. The cross-section is
uniform over the whole length.
 It is usually defined by a standard, which fixes the normal
size ranges and the tolerances on shape and dimension.
The surface is generally smooth, but reinforcing bars or floor
plates, for example, may have a regularly raised or indented
pattern.
According to shape and dimensions, rolled steel products are
classified as (i) long products, and (ii) flat products.
 Long products can consist of sectional products or bar and
rod products, while the flat products can consist of plate
products or sheet and strip products.
 According to the stage of manufacture, rolled products
can be classified as (i) hot rolled products, and (ii) cold
rolled products.
 Hot rolled products are normally produced by hot
rolling of semi-finished steel products and sometimes by
hot rolling of crude products (pencil ingots).
 Cold rolled products are normally produced by the cold
rolling of hot rolled products.
 Manufacturing operations can be generally classified
into primary and secondary processes.
 For metals, primary manufacturing usually refers to the
conversion of ores into metallic materials.
 Secondary manufacturing is generally understood to
mean the conversion of the products from the primary
operation into semi-finished or finished parts.
 For example, the fabrication of automobile engine blocks
from a primary melt of iron or aluminum is said to be
secondary manufacturing.
 It is often difficult to classify a particular metal shaping
operation as either a primary or secondary process in an
absolute sense, as it can be difficult to delineate between
the various steps within an integrated manufacturing
process.
The various types of raw materials that are typically
used in metal fabrication
Casting Raw Materials
 Casting, a fabrication process that has been in use for
over 6,000 years, involves forcing liquid metal into a
mold and allowing it to cool and harden in the desired
shape.
 Raw materials used in the process typically include
molten metal, but epoxies, concrete, and clay are also
used.
 Common metals used in the casting process include:
 Aluminum
 Iron
 Steel
 Stainless steel
Benefits of Using Basic Raw Materials for Metal
Fabrication.
 The usefulness of standardized raw materials for the
numerous metal fabrication processes is immediately
apparent.
 Having uniform shapes and sizes of raw materials
reduces the amount of metal fabrication necessary to
create a product and dramatically decreases production
times.
 The result is a lower cost per piece fabricated.
Production of Iron:
Iron is one of the most common elements on earth.
It is also one of the oldest metals and was first
fashioned into useful and ornamental objects at least
3,500 years ago.
Pure iron is a soft, grayish white metal.
Most iron is found in minerals formed by the
combination of iron with other elements.
Iron oxides are the most common.
Those minerals near the surface of the earth that have
the highest iron content are known as iron ores and
are mined commercially.
 Iron ore is converted into various types of iron through
several processes.
 The most common process is the use of a blast furnace to
produce pig iron which is about 92-94% iron and with
smaller amounts of other elements.
 Pig iron has only limited uses, and most of this iron
goes on to a steel mill where it is converted into various
steel alloys by further reducing the carbon content and
adding other elements such as manganese and nickel to
give the steel specific properties.
1.Raw Materials
The raw materials used to produce pig iron in a blast
furnace are iron ore, coke, and limestone.
Iron ores are mainly iron oxides and include magnetite,
hematite, and many other rocks.
The iron content of these ores ranges from 70% down to
20% or less.
Coke is a substance made by heating coal until it
becomes almost pure carbon.
Limestone occurs naturally and is a source of calcium
carbonate.
Other metals are sometimes mixed with iron in the
production of various forms of steel, such as chromium,
nickel, manganese, molybdenum, and tungsten.
2.The Ore Extraction and Refining Process
 Before iron ore can be used in a blast furnace, it must be
extracted from the ground and partially refined to
remove most of the impurities.
 Iron was produced by the hot blast method Either way,
the fundamental activity in iron making involved a
worker stirring small batches of pig iron and cinder until
the iron separated from the slag.
3.The Manufacturing Process
 Charging the blast furnace
 After processing, the ore is blended with other ore and goes
to the blast furnace.
 A blast furnace is a tower shaped structure, made of steel, and
lined with refractory, or heat resistant bricks.
 The mixture of raw material, or charge, enters at the top of
the blast furnace.
 At the bottom of the furnace, very hot air is blown, or blasted,
in through nozzles.
 The coke burns in the presence of the hot air.
 The oxygen in the air reacts with the carbon in the coke to
form carbon monoxide.
 The carbon monoxide then reacts with the iron ore to form
carbon dioxide and pure iron.
Separating the iron from the slag
 The melted iron sinks to the bottom of the furnace.
 The limestone combines with the rock and other
impurities in the ore to form a slag which is lighter than
the iron and floats on top.
 The iron and slag are drawn off separately from the
bottom of the furnace.
 The melted iron might go to a further alloying process,
or might be cast into ingots called pigs.
 The slag is carried away for disposal.