4. Electric arc furnaces since 1950

Before the Second World War, the electric furnace was reserved for the production of special steels, due to the very slowness of the operation. Progress made during the war, in terms of unit size and power, enabled the electric furnace to compete with the Martin furnace for the production of carbon steels from scrap, from 1950 onwards, with the construction of 500,000 to 1,000,000 t steelworks · an ^–1 , including 150 to 200 t units .

At the same time, smaller electric furnaces were being developed in American and then Italian mini-mills, and especially after the advent of continuous casting made it possible to abandon casting in small ingots, which was both...