Gallery: Enter the 9,000-Degree Hell That Melts 2 Million Tons of Steel a Year

  • Steelworkers next to the furnace door.
    Ricky Rhodes
    01

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    A worker stands beside the furnace door.
  • Electric Arc Furnace preparing to be charged to melt scrap steel.
    Ricky Rhodes
    02

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    Steel melts in the electric arc furnace.
  • Image may contain Machine Vehicle Transportation Train Motor and Engine
    Ricky Rhodes
    03

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    The vertical bloom caster forms three strands of steel.
  • Cleaning a Ladle of molten steel at the TimkenSteel Faircrest Steel Plant.
    Ricky Rhodes
    04

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    A worker cleans a ladle.
  • Image may contain Building Human Person Factory Warehouse Nature Outdoors Transportation Vehicle and Train
    Ricky Rhodes
    05

    140416-TMK-CoolingBed-1780.jpg

    Bars cool on huge rotating racks.
  • Image may contain Building Factory and Manufacturing
    Ricky Rhodes
    06

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    Molten steel falls from the top of the vertical bloom caster.
  • An ingot being moved to TimkenSteel039s new fully automated forge press.
    Ricky Rhodes
    07

    140416-TMK-ForgePress-1245.jpg

    An ingot travels to the press to be flattened and lengthened.
  • Image may contain Building and Factory
    Ricky Rhodes
    08

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    Scrap metal goes into the electric arc furnace to be melted down. Inside, three electrodes shoot out electricity to heat the metal. Temperatures can reach 9,000 degrees.
  • Image may contain Building Factory and Manufacturing
    Ricky Rhodes
    09

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    A crane carries the ladle down the line to its next position.
  • Molten steel at 3000 degrees in the ladle refiner.
    Ricky Rhodes
    10

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    Molten steel melts to 3,000 degrees in the ladle.
  • Image may contain Banister Handrail and Building
    Ricky Rhodes
    11

    141113-TMK-VerticalBloomCaster-180.jpg

    A worker prepares the vertical bloom caster for a heat.
  • Image may contain Corridor Indoors Staircase Building Warehouse Lighting and Aisle
    Ricky Rhodes
    12

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    A worker watches as a transportation car move through the vertical bloom caster.
  • Ingots being poured.
    Ricky Rhodes
    13

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    Once the steel is melted, it gets cast. Sometimes that happens in a bottom-pour caster. The steel flows down a central tube, then up to fill six molds.
  • Image may contain Building
    Ricky Rhodes
    14

    141113-TMK-VerticalBloomCaster-071.jpg

    A worker watches the ladle pour steel down the 300-foot-long vertical bloom caster.
  • Image may contain Building Factory and Warehouse
    Ricky Rhodes
    15

    140408-TMK-TechScout-2-065.jpg

    An extra electric arc furnace roof.
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