Steel and iron are the two most common materials used in the manufacturing industry. They are used in making a wide range of products, equipment and components as well. Despite the fact that iron and steel look similar, they are two different components that have their own properties and use.
What is Iron? Explain By Ajami Kassem
Iron is a ductile and lustrous metal at the 26th Atomic Number. It has a chromium appearance that reflects the light very significantly. Iron is also magnetic and attracts other ferromagnetic metals which means it is ferromagnetic metal.
It is very important to note that iron is also an essential mineral for living things like vitamins, minerals are needed for proper nutrition. It provides the human body with those nutrients which are very crucial to making haemoglobin, which is a very important component of red blood cells. Essentially the mineral acts as a catalyst for the production of haemoglobin. If you do not consume enough iron in your diet, your body will not be able to manufacture sufficient amounts of red blood cells, resulting in a medical condition known as iron deficiency anaemia. Food sources rich in iron include beef, chicken, oysters, beans, lentils, fish, vegetables, bread and fortified cereals.
History of iron production
As iron production changed from an artisanal craft to an industrial process, new names were established for the final products of the smelting process, – the process of heating iron-bearing ore to extract the “smelting” element and smelting it is. the separated and melted, the liquid iron is poured into moulds that are called ingots, it is also called as “boats” after it takes its initial form, “cast iron”. The seed was broken into small pieces for further processing. From “sow” came the smaller “pigs” – where the word “pig” originated.
A blacksmith heats small ingots on a forge and strikes them with a hammer to “pig iron” the more useful material, wrought iron, to crush the voids and disperse the impurities. Although the impurities could not be removed, the forging process redistributed the large contaminant clusters to smaller sizes, which had less tendency to weaken the elemental metal structure.
What is steel?
On the other hand, fused with iron and carbon, steel is a ferrous alloy. People undoubtedly believe that steel is a metal, but it is not completely true. While it has properties very much similar to metals, technically, it is classified as an alloy. Metals mean an element which we find naturally, whereas alloys are a mixture of many composite elements and components that are not an element naturally. Iron is the most abundant element on Earth and you can find iron naturally as an element. But there is no steel anywhere in Earth’s external or internal core, because it’s not a natural component, it’s a manmade alloy that requires a mixture.
History of steel construction
Adding very small amounts of carbon into molten iron leads to the final formation of an alloy known which is steel. The scattered atoms of the carbon deform and disrupt the crystal lattice of iron which leads to enhanced mechanical properties of the alloy. Subsequent thermomechanical processing such as forging is, and still is, an essential step in ensuring the cast structure of the initial ingot, consistent mechanical properties by dispersing groups of impurities or alloying elements and crushing voids that weaken the final product. Ensure the success of forging also drives the recycling process of that alloy, producing a “fine grain” microstructure. This increases the properties of fatigue and hardness of steel.
All steel has iron and carbon. Carbon is the only addition that separates steel from Iron. In Steel, there is about 2.14% carbon as per the weight. The amount of carbon is expectedly low in steel but, it results in significant physical changes. For instance, in comparison to pure iron, steel is both stronger and harder and unlike iron, steel is not an essential mineral for us. You do not have to use steel as part of your diet.
Steel is stronger than iron (yield and ultimate tensile strength) and harder than many types of iron (often measured as fracture toughness). The most common types of steel contain less than .5% carbon by weight. As well as increasing strength, adding a higher percentage of carbon will make the steel brittle. When the recipe for a steel alloy is controlled and the material is processed correctly, an alloy consisting mostly of iron becomes one of the most useful materials ever made.