The Steel Making Process

The Steel Making Process. . The Moss Bay Works wasn't just another track producer, it was a world leader outshining European rivals. In its final 30 years, Workington was the sole UK producer of track products. This is a look into the steel making process that took place at the Workington site., Locally mined coal and iron ore together with limestone from local quarries fuelled the early industry later supplemented by coke from the North East and iron ore from overseas (Spain, Sweden and Canada)., Some coal is used to raise steam for power but most is converted to coke, to fuel ironmaking in the blast furnaces. Coke is almost pure carbon and has the right structural properties for ironmaking., Iron ore is crushed and blended in the inter plant then smelted together with crushed coke and limestone to create "sinter"., Iron ore,coke and limestone were charged in to the blast furnace. Periodically the furnace was tapped. First the slag run off through the (higher) slag notch and then the iron. The molten iron was either cast (allowed to cool) as pigs or transported to the Bessemer shop., Molten iron for steelmaking was stored in the mixer, a refractory lined vessel beside the converters. Here iron is being poured out of the mixer into a ladle, which will then be poured into the horizontal converter., A powerful blast of air was blown through tuyeres at the bottom, and then the vessel turned to vertical which produced a huge shower of sparks. As the carbon and impurities burnt out, the shower of sparks turned into an intense white flame. Outside, clouds of rusty red smoke drifted across the sky. 25 tons of iron would be converted to steel in about 20 minutes, each cycle was called a "Heat"., The 'blower' was a very experienced man who controlled the blast of air through the converter. He could judge when the blow had finished by the changing appearance of the flame from the converter. The timing at the end of the blow was critical, in order to achieve the precise required metallurgic specification., Steel was poured from the inverted vessel into special refractory lined ladies. The steel was poured into rail mounted ingot moulds, a process called teeming. The steel would cool and solidify until they were sufficiently solid to allow the ingot mould to be stripped The steel ingots were then placed in gas fired soaking pits, which were like giant ovens where the temperature of the steel was equalised throughout the ingot., "Derwent Howe" the landscaped hill on the shoreline overlooking the town, is primarily slag accumulated over decades of iron and steelmaking Additional slag deposits can be found to the south at Salterbeck and to the north of the river at Oldside. A proportion has been recovered for use in road building and for manufacturing building products.