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ABSTRACT
The "mini-factory" phenomenon is relatively recent. Until the 50s, the expansion of the steel industry was based upon a single transformation process of iron ore in blast furnaces and then in steel mills which increasing yield. The mini-factories transform the steel scrap via electric arc furnaces and rolling, with a yield at first of less than 100,000 tons/year and later more significantly. The mini-factories or the integrated medium size plants producing primary metal or cast iron are more specifically presented in this article.
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Read the articleAUTHOR
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Jacques ASTIER: Former Director of the French Iron and Steel Research Institute (IRSID)
INTRODUCTION
The phenomenon of "mini-mills" is relatively recent: until the decade beginning in 1950, the expansion of the steel industry was based on :
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a single scheme:
Iron ore
Blast furnace
Steelworks
(mainly based on the Martin furnace, but also on the Thomas converter — especially in Western Europe — and then switching to oxygen);
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steady growth, both in the unit capacities of blast furnaces and steelmaking reactors, and in the plants themselves, rising rapidly to 1 Mt/year, then 5, and now reaching, or even exceeding, 10 Mt/year.
It was against this backdrop that mini-factories gradually sprang up, first in 1950 and then more rapidly thereafter:
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with the :
Scrap metal
Electric arc furnace
Lamination
and often very low capacities, less than 100,000 t/year, what we would now call "micro-factories".
Subsequently, the unit capacities of mini-factories increased, and this...
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