Metal & Steel

Steel is a metal alloy that is made from iron ore. It is stripped in a blast furnace to create the raw material, pig iron. The process uses a lot of energy but steel can be infinitely reprocessed, so it's a great material for recycling. Varying the amount of alloy elements in steel would affect the hardness, elasticity, tensile strength and ductility of the steel.

The Different Types

• Damascus Steel - Created from a number of different materials and is famous for its durability in ancient times.
• Blister Steel - Steel produced by the cementation process.
• Crucible Steel - Steel produced by Benjamin Huntsman's crucible technique.
• Styrian Steel - Steel produced by fining cast iron from manganese rich ores.
• Shear Steel - Blister steel that has broken up, faggotted, heated and welded to produce more homogeneous product.
• Carbon Steel - Contains of iron and carbon.
• HSLA Steel - (high strength, low alloy) with small additions of manganese to provide more strength.
• Low Alloy Steel - Contains other elements, molybdenum, manganese, chromium or nickel to improve the harden ability of the thick sections.
• Stainless Steel - Contains chromium, nickel to resist corrosion.
• Tool Steel - Alloyed with tungsten and cobalt to maximize solution hardening, allow precipitation hardening and improve temperature resistance.
• Ferrous superalloys - Contains nickel, cobalt or nickel-iron for extreme weather resistance.
• Hadfield Steel - Contains 12-14% of manganese for incredibly hard skin that could resist wearing.
• Maraging Steel - Contains nickel, molybdenum, aluminium, copper, titanium and cobalt. It possesses high strength and toughness, uniform and predictable shrinkage during heat treatment, resist corrosion and crack propagation.
• Eglin Steel - Contains iron, manganese, molybdenum, copper, phosphorus, sulphur, calcium, nitrogen, aluminium, chromium, tungsten, carbon, nickel, silicon, vanadium, and tungsten carbide. Mainly used in weapons applications such as missile parts and tank bodies.
• TMT Steel - Thermo Mechanically Treated Steel. The relatively soft core helps in ductility of the steel while the treated skin has good weldability to suit construction requirements.

Symbol

All type of steel is recyclable as it could be melted into a new form. Therefore there is no specific symbol for metal recycling.