Click on the alphabetic index to display terms beginning with the corresponding
letter or search for a term below.
Bars
Steel formed into long shapes from billets. Merchant bar and reinforcing bar are two kinds of bars.
Beam
Long pieces of squared-off metal, normally steel, which are used in building construction.
Bend Tests
Tests used to assess the ductility and malleability of steel when subjected to bending.
Billet
A semi-finished form of steel that is used for long products such as bars and channels. Billets are normally two to seven inches square.
Blast Furnace
A tall cylindrical furnace lined with heat-resistant bricks that smelts iron from iron ore. Hot air and gases are blasted from the iron ore, coke, and limestone that fuel the furnace.
Blank
A section of sheet steel that has the outer dimensions of a specific part but has not yet been stamped by the end user. This lowers steel processor’s labour and transportation costs.
Bloom
A semi-finished form of steel, whose cross-section is more than eight inches, that will be further processed into beams, rods, bars, or tubing products.
Brittle Fracture
A fracture that has little or no plastic deformation.
Burr
A subtle ridge on the edge of strip steel resulting from cutting operations such as slitting, trimming, shearing, or blanking. For example, as a steel processor trims the sides of the sheet steel parallel or cuts a sheet of steel into strips, its edges will bend with the direction of the cut.
Butt-Weld Pipe
The standard pipe used in plumbing. Heated skelp is passed continuously through welding rolls, which form the tube and squeeze the hot edges together to make a solid weld.