Interactive Steel Manufacturing Process
AIST’s Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel® Wheel
AIST has collaborated with Purdue University Northwest’s Center for Innovation Through Visualization and Simulation to create a unique, interactive experience of the steel manufacturing process. This one-of-a-kind experience allows you to click on each phase of steelmaking and provides a deeper understanding of the process through videos, photos, and detailed explanations of functions, equipment and materials used.
The process starts in the center of the wheel with the three main ingredients of iron in the form of iron ore, coke and lime, which are fed into a blast furnace to produce molten iron. The molten iron is mixed with recycled steel scrap and further processed in a basic oxygen furnace to make steel. The electric arc furnace melts recycled steel scrap. The molten steel is formulated to precise chemical compositions during the secondary refining processes. The refined steel is then cast into a variety of solid shapes usually by a continuous casting method. The solidified shapes are processed into finished goods by various processes, including hot rolling, cold rolling, annealing and coating.
AIST would also like to thank the Colorado School of Mines’ Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center for its contributions to the project, including supplying descriptions for the alloys used in the steelmaking process.