Recent Trends in Iron and Steel Technology

During the last decade, world annual ingot steel produ-ction has increased by about 150 million tons as shown in Fig. 1. Nine-tenths of the total pig iron produced forms an intermediate product for conversion into steel. Such post-war expansion has been actuated by the rapid growth of light and heavy engineering industries, increased demands of consumer goods and the universal desire to obtain higher standards of living. One twentieth of the earth's crust consists of iron which should assure the supplies of this important metal as inexhaustible. This could be so if the production and processing techniques are under continuous transformation in relation to the nature of available resources