A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel.
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. It is produced in a two-stage process. First, iron ore is reduced or smelted with coke and limestone in a blast furnace, producing molten iron which is either cast into pig iron or carried to the next stage as molten iron. In the second stage, known as steelmaking, impurities such as sulfur, phosphorus, and excess carbon are removed and alloying elements such as manganese, nickel, chromium and vanadium are added to produce the exact steel required. Steel mills then turn molten steel into blooms, ingots, slabs and sheet through casting, hot rolling and cold rolling.
In the late 19th Century and early 20th Century the world's largest steel mill was the Barrow Hematite Steel Company steelworks located in Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdom. Today, the world's largest steel mill is in Gwangyang, South Korea.
Read more about Steel Mill: Integrated Mill, Minimill
Famous quotes containing the words steel and/or mill:
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)