Glossary

Don’t know what a slab is? No problem. Here you’ll find explanations of specialist terms and abbreviations from the ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe world.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
(Wide) hot strip
Hot-rolled product with a rectangular cross section and a width of at least 600 mm which is wound into coils with accurately aligned edges directly after rolling. Produced on (wide) hot strip mills, mainly continuously in thicknesses from 1.5 to 25.0 mm and widths up to 2,000 mm. (Wide) hot strip is used as a starting material for sheet, plate and cold-rolled (wide) strip.
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(Wide) hot strip mill
Facility for the production of wide hot strip. Fully continuous lines consist of one or more roughing stands and a finishing train with seven finishing stands.
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Alloy
Steels containing additional metallic and/or non-metallic elements (e.g. carbon, chromium, silicon). 
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AOD converter
Special converter for stainless steels, into which argon and oxygen are blown to reduce the carbon content of the steel. AOD: stands for Argon Oxygen Decarburization.
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Basic oxygen furnace/converter
Refractory lined vessel for refining (converting) hot metal into steel. Top blowing of oxygen reduces the carbon content of the steel to levels as low as 0.1%.
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Blast furnace
Facility for converting prepared iron ore into liquid iron (pig iron). It works on the counterflow principle: the charge (consisting of ore, burden, fluxes and coke) is introduced from the top – usually via a rotary chute. The hot blast air flows in the opposite direction. The blast air is pre-heated in stoves fired by blast furnace gas and injected into the furnace through tuyères located around the base of the furnace. Coke is used as the reducing agent. Depending on the charge and method of operation, different types of pig iron and even ferroalloys can be produced. A blast furnace remains in operation for many years (furnace campaign). The performance and cost efficiency of a blast furnace can be increased by larger furnace units, automatic charging, burden preparation, high blast temperatures, oxygen injection in the blast and pressurized charging. Blast furnace byproducts are blast furnace gas and blast furnace slag.
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Blast furnace gas
Also known as top gas, comprises one quarter CO and is fully recycled in a modern steel mill.
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BONDAL®
Vibration-damping composite material 
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Burden
The blast furnace charge, consisting of iron-oxide bearing materials and fluxes.
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Business area
The term for the eight main organizational units in the ThyssenKrupp Group.
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Capital employed
Interest-bearing invested capital
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Carbon steels
EN 10020 – Definition and classification of grades of steel – distinguishes 1. base steels and unalloyed carbon and stainless steels, 2. alloyed carbon and stainless steels.
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Casting-rolling line
Advanced production line based on thin slab technology for the production of hot strip from molten steel in one production step.
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Coating
Metallic (zinc, nickel, aluminum) or organic (paint, plastic) coating or carbon steel flat products to provide corrosion protection.
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Coil
Steel strip wound into a roll. 
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Cold rolling
Forming process carried out following hot rolling or strip casting. The material is reduced to a predefined thickness in the roll gap of the cold rolling mill by the application of high pressure between two rolls. Tandem cold rolling mills for carbon steel consist of up to five closely spaced mill stands. The difference versus hot rolling is the temperature. In cold rolling, the forming temperature is always below the recrystallization temperature, which makes subsequent annealing necessary.
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Cold strip
Cold-reduced flat product in widths up to 2,000 mm and thicknesses of 0.35 to approx. 4 mm in carbon steel. The advantages of cold-rolled strip over hot strip lie in better surface quality, lower tolerances and thinner sections.
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Continuous casting
Semi-continuous process for producing slabs from molten steel. The steel is cast via a tundish into a cooled mold which determines the dimensions (width, thickness) of the slab. The cast strand emerges from the mold with a solidified skin and is guided by rolls through a cooling section, deflected to the horizontal position and then cut by torches into required slab lengths.
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Continuous hot-rolled plate
Plate cut from wide hot strip, mainly in thickness up to 15 (max. 20) mm.
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CRM
Customer Relationship Management is not a software program but a holistic business philosophy. The aim of CRM is to create added value for both customers and suppliers on the basis of long-term business relationships. The customer relationship is intensified at all process levels and tailored to the customer in order to strengthen customer loyalty and raise relationship exit barriers.
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Crude steel
Can be in liquid or solid form. In both cases it is a raw product. In the liquid condition it is used for ingot teeming, continuous casting or cast steel production.
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Cut-to-length line
Used to cut sheets from strip and to shear slit strip (slit strip in cut lengths). In between are straightening and leveling units. The cut-to-length line is usually arranged parallel to the slitting line.
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Downstream activities
Processing steps carried out on flat steel to add value, e.g. coating, steel service center processing or joining technologies.
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e-business
Information sharing, communication and transactions between suppliers, manufacturers or customers via the internet.
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EBIT
Earnings before interest and taxes
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EBITDA
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization
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Economic value added (EVA)
Difference between ROCE and weighted average cost of capital (WACC), multiplied by capital employed. If EVA is positive, the return on capital employed is higher than the cost of capital.
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Electric steel
Steel produced in an electric arc or induction furnace. The operation of electric furnaces allows the production of chemically resistant steels, tool steels, high-speed steels, special engineering, aerospace and nuclear steels as well as magnet materials.
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Finishing
Equipment and operations such as straightening, cutting, etc. designed to give steel products their desired appearance after shaping
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Granulated blast furnace slag
Blast furnace slag cooled using water to form vitreous solidified (granulated) slag sand. Raw material for cement production.
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Heat treatment of heavy plate
Annealing treatments for heavy plate in furnaces to achieve specific microstructure types and thereby specific properties which cannot be achieved directly in the rolling process.
Standard processes:
- Water or oil hardening and tempering if necessary
- Normalizing and tempering if necessary
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Heavy plate
Hot-rolled plate with a thickness of 3 mm and more. Heavy plate is supplied in all alloyed and unalloyed steel grades.
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Hot dip coating
In this process, sheet or strip is coated by immersing it in a bath of molten metal (e.g. zinc, tin, aluminum, lead or alloys thereof). Dimensional standard EN 10143.
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Hot rolling
Forming method. Rolling at high temperatures permits large thickness reductions, allowing the forming of slabs e.g. into thin wide hot strip. 
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Hydroforming
Innovative forming method in which pressurized fluid is used to form metal in a closed die. It allows the production of extremely complex shapes from different starting materials, including tubes.
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Multi-processing line
A unit that allows several processing steps to be combined that would otherwise be carried out on separate units with conventional production technology.
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Pig iron (hot metal)
According to EN 10 001 an alloy of iron and more than 2% C. It may also contain other elements within certain limits. (Mn < 30%, Si < 8%, P < 3%, Cr < 10%, others < 10%). Pig iron is processed into steel or cast iron. Iron for steelmaking can be divided into low-phosphorus and high-phosphorus grades.
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Primer
Used to enhance adhesion between steel and a coating material that would otherwise adhere only poorly to the steel or not at all. Primers provide excellent corrosion protection and a base coat for subsequent paint coats.
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Pusher furnace
Furnace for heating continuous cast slabs to rolling temperature. The slabs are pushed through the furnace. Other type of system: walking beam furnace – here, the slabs are moved through the furnace by the lifting and lowering operations of the walking beams
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PVD/CVD
Physical or Chemical Vapor Deposition of metallic, organic or inorganic coatings.
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Quarto (four-high) mill
Facility for making heavy plate with a quarto (four-high) mill.
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Quenching and tempering
Type of heat treatment comprising hardening (quenching from a high temperature) and tempering (annealing at a low temperature).

Wear-resistant steels  

Group of steels which, as a result of their microstructure type and/or hardness, demonstrate a high level of resistance to friction or impact stresses. ThyssenKrupp brand name: XAR®.
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Recycling
Returning a material or component to the production cycle to make a new end product. Through recycling, scrap becomes a raw material for steel production. Steel is a particularly environmentally friendly material due to its hundred percent recyclability with no loss of quality. Recyclability is an important material property.
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ReflectionsOne®
Color designer Friedrich Ernst v. Garnier has developed a new spectrum of colors for building with steel. Numerous major buildings worldwide already use the new colors.
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Reversing mill
Mill stand which forms material as it reciprocates between adjustable rolls. Consists of one or two stands, at least one of which carries out several reversing passes.
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ROCE
Return on capital employed
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Scale
Layer of oxide which forms on the surface of steel during annealing, rolling or forging. A scale coating consists of several oxidation layers which differ chemically (rolling scale).
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Secondary steelmaking
or ladle metallurgy is the general heading for methods used for oxide removal, degassing, composition control, inclusion morphology and improving the cleanliness of steel. Many of these processes are carried out in vacuum conditions.
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SECURE®
Brand name for a group of materials used for ballistic protection in civilian applications.
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SFAS
Statement of Financial Accounting Standards
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Shaft furnace
Unit for producing hot metal from previously non-recyclable iron-bearing steel mill circulating materials.
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Sheet
Flat product in thicknesses from 0.35 to less than 3.00 mm: Cold-rolled flat products of mild or high-strength steels for cold forming. Usually metallic or organic coated. 
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Simultaneous and concurrent engineering
Close technical cooperation with the automobile industry for material- and production-integrated body development.
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Sinter
Fine-grained ores and concentrates sintered (agglomerated) into lumps in the sinter plant. The fine-grained iron-bearing material is heated to the level necessary for the surfaces of the pieces to fuse together.
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Sinter plant
Here, the originally fine-grained iron ore is sintered with various additives, coke, fluxes, etc. "Sintering" is a continuous process in which ore fines are aggregated into lumps on a sinter belt for charging into the blast furnace. In their original condition ore fines would choke the blast furnace.
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Slab
Compact block of crude steel. Product of the casting process in the melt shop, used as a starting material in the rolling mills to produce hot strip or quarto plate.
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Slag
In every melting process oxidic materials are created which due to their lower specific gravity float on the surface of the molten iron or steel. Undesirable tramp elements separated from the iron oxide are passed into the slag. When solidified, slag is glass- or stone-like. Steel mill slag is a material: Blast furnace slags are used in the production of cement (iron portland and blast furnace cement), bricks, pumice, lime, roadbuilding materials, railway ballast and mineral wool. Finely ground phosphorus-containing converter slag is a valuable fertilizer
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Slit strip
Hot- or cold-rolled wide strip (wider than 600 mm), cut lengthways into widths of less than 600 mm on slitting lines. Delivered in coils or cut lengths. Slitting is also used for coated wide strip.
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Soft-magnetic steels
Offer easy magnetization, high permeability and low reversal losses. Microstructure should have few lattice defects and internal stresses to allow Bloch wall movements. Unalloyed or low-allow grades are used in power engineering. Dynamo and transformer sheets are alloyed with Si to reduce eddy current losses.
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Special structural steels
Structural steels displaying quality properties exceeding the requirements of standards. 
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Stationary quench unit
Unit in which, during quenching using pressurized water, the sheets to be hardened are held in place by hydraulically attached “feet”. (Other type of system: roller quench unit – here, the sheet is moved between guide rolls during quenching).
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Steel service centers
Steel service centers are modern, efficient processing operations offering a wide range of products and service capabilities including hot- and cold-rolled, coated slit strip, sheet and blanks in carbon and stainless steel. Steel service centers are an important link between rollers and steel fabricators.
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Strip casting (also known as thin strip casting)
A technology employed at ThyssenKrupp that involves molten steel being cast between two rotating rolls and then hardened into a hot rolled strip. Elimination of the conventional hot-rolling stage saves an entire process step.
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Supply chain management
Supply chain management analyzes the entire supply chain of a company with the aim of improving the flow of information and materials between internal and external suppliers, production areas, distributors and customers.
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Sustainability
Holistic approach emphasizing the equal weighting of economic, social and ecological goals. 
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Tailored blank
Blank made of individual sheets of same or different grade, thickness or coating joined together e.g. by laser welding. Tailored blanks are formable and are produced according to specific customer requirements.
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Tandem mill
Line in which mill stands are arranged one after the other (tandem layout). Tandem cold rolling mills generally consist of two to five closely spaced two-high, four-high or six-high stands through which strip passes one or more times.
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Tear plates
Hot-rolled, cut-to-length plate with a teardrop pattern, used as floor plates.
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Tensile strength
Maximum point of the stress-strain curve, determined by tensile testing as the quotient of maximum tensile stress and the original cross section of the specimen. Unit of measurement: MPa.
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ThyssenKrupp Steel best
Program to enhance efficiency in all areas of the company.
"best" stands for “business excellence in service and technology”.
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Tinplate
Tin-coated, cold-rolled sheet in nominal thicknesses from 0.17 to 0.49 mm, double reduced tinplate from 0.14 to 0.29 mm in mild unalloyed steel to EN 10203. The tin is deposited electrolytically on one or both sides in the same or different coating thicknesses ("differential coating"). Coating weights staggered from 1.0 to 10 g/m² per side. An additional paint coat can enhance corrosion resistance. Used mostly in the packaging industry (with high recycling rates), also for household goods and toys. Technical delivery conditions in DIN 10205.
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Torpedo ladle
Special container on rails for transporting molten pig iron. They can hold up to 300 metric tons of pig iron at a temperature of around 1,500°C.
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Toughness
The amount of energy a material can absorb from forming or other stresses before fracture.
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ULSAB
Ultra-Light-Steel-Auto-Body. The ULSAB-AVC (Advanced Vehicle Concepts) program is an important part of the international steel industry’s constant efforts to secure the future of steels as the first choice material for auto manufacturers.
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US GAAP
United States accounting rules;
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
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Vacuum degassing facility
Facility for the secondary treatment of steel under strongly reduced pressure, capable of achieving high cleanliness, low gas contents and close composition tolerances, allowing high quality requirements to be met.
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Wear-resistant steels
Group of steels which, as a result of their microstructure type and/or hardness, demonstrate a high level of resistance to friction or impact stresses. ThyssenKrupp brand name: XAR®.
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XABO®
Brand name for a group of hard, wear-resistant steel grades for plate.
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XAR®
Brand name for a group of hard, wear-resistant steel grades for sheet. 
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