home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- The most widely used method of steelmaking,
- involving the blasting of oxygen at
- supersonic speed into molten pig iron.
- Pig iron from a blast furnace, together
- with steel scrap, is poured into a converter,
- and a jet of oxygen is then projected into
- the mixture. The excess carbon in the mix and
- other impurities quickly burn out or form a
- slag, and the converter is emptied by
- tilting. It takes only about 45 minutes to
- refine 350 tonnes/400 tons of steel. The
- basic-oxygen process was developed in 1948 at
- a steelworks near the Austrian towns of Linz
- and Donawitz. It is a version of the Bessemer
- process.
-