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128-625: Download coordinates as: Kaiser Steel was a steel company and integrated steel mill near Fontana, California . Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser founded the company on December 1, 1941, and workers fired up the plant's first blast furnace , named "Bess No. 1" after Kaiser's wife, on December 30, 1942. Then in August 1943, the plant would produce its first steel plate for the Pacific Coast shipbuilding industry amid World War II . Resources for early production came from various sources, and

256-711: A 214 mile section of the 30-inch Texas-California pipe line in 1946-1947 and 92 and 95-inch plates of the same length for the 980 miles of 30 and 31-inch pipes for the Trans-Arabian Pipeline in 1947-? and then 167,918 tons of plates for the Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline in 1950 and 1951 from the Geneva Mill. Even though a U.S. Steel subsidiary after August 1948, Consolidated bought its plate for the Transcontinental Pipeline project from

384-412: A BOS process is manufactured in one-twelfth the time. Today, electric arc furnaces (EAF) are a common method of reprocessing scrap metal to create new steel. They can also be used for converting pig iron to steel, but they use a lot of electrical energy (about 440 kWh per metric ton), and are thus generally only economical when there is a plentiful supply of cheap electricity. The steel industry

512-541: A Californian steel mill too. Besides ambition and confidence in his own problem-solving abilities, Kaiser had cultivated ties to several influential members of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration . Though originally from New York State , Kaiser had also become a strong proponent for industrializing the Western US, with greater independence from established industries to the east. In the spring of 1941, industry on

640-561: A U.S. Steel subsidiary) and United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel). Vineyard, Utah, was chosen as the location for the new plant because iron ore , coal , limestone , and other resources necessary for primary steel making are located in nearby areas of Utah, and because Utah Valley is far inland, away from possible Japanese attack on the West Coast. Columbia had opened a 120,000 tons/year blast furnace in Ironton in 1924 during

768-605: A baseline of cheap and reliable electric power. However, as an integrated mill, the plant would need regular shipments of raw materials to produce pig iron, which would then be refined into (primary) steel. The first requirement would be the iron ore itself. On that count, Fontana's location provided an advantage; plentiful iron deposits existed throughout the nearby Mojave Desert , even in San Bernardino County. For initial production, Kaiser Steel quickly purchased an iron mine near Kelso, California outright. Known as

896-713: A carbon-intermediate steel by the 1st century AD. There is evidence that carbon steel was made in Western Tanzania by the ancestors of the Haya people as early as 2,000 years ago by a complex process of "pre-heating" allowing temperatures inside a furnace to reach 1300 to 1400 °C. Evidence of the earliest production of high carbon steel in South Asia is found in Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu ,

1024-444: A change of volume. In this case, expansion occurs. Internal stresses from this expansion generally take the form of compression on the crystals of martensite and tension on the remaining ferrite, with a fair amount of shear on both constituents. If quenching is done improperly, the internal stresses can cause a part to shatter as it cools. At the very least, they cause internal work hardening and other microscopic imperfections. It

1152-428: A ferrite BCC crystal form, but at higher carbon content it takes a body-centred tetragonal (BCT) structure. There is no thermal activation energy for the transformation from austenite to martensite. There is no compositional change so the atoms generally retain their same neighbours. Martensite has a lower density (it expands during the cooling) than does austenite, so that the transformation between them results in

1280-543: A few major milestones: By 1953, the initial expansion plans had ballooned further to a total investment of $ 65 million. Additional PP&E included: Kaiser Steel could enter the mid-1950s with optimism. Decreasing military demand from the end of the Korean War was offset by other markets, not least a boom in California. In 1955, the company took other steps to rationalize its raw inputs. In addition to modernizing

1408-618: A financial and political setback in 1947, when multiple appeals to the RFC for a loan reduction were denied. This may have been due to the political tide in Washington, D.C. turning against New Deal supporters (and Henry J. Kaiser's allies). In a bitter contrast, the War Assets Administration sold the government-built Geneva mill to competitor U.S. Steel at just 25% of capital costs and despite U.S. Steel actually offering

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1536-581: A finishing mill, forge , and foundry somewhere in the Los Angeles area. The primary input, less refined pig iron , would come from blast furnaces, possibly in a separate facility, which would source raw iron ore in turn from mines in Utah. This plan to produce finished steel in Los Angeles had several advantages: the tidewater location allowed for low-cost maritime transport , and electric power

1664-593: A former Utah steel mill may be moving toward Utah Lake according to a recent report conducted by a Salt Lake City engineering company. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is investigating the CH2M Hill study of the Geneva Steel site to determine if contaminated groundwater is moving beyond the facility boundary. The facility site and environmental contaminants are being remediated under EPA's voluntary Brownfields cleanup program. U.S. Steel operated

1792-604: A group to attempt to purchase and retire those credits in order to maintain local air quality. The exact price of the credits will be determined by the open market, but estimates of the value of the emissions reduction credits range from $ 350,000 to $ 35,000,000. The movie Footloose was set in a fictional town in Oklahoma, but was filmed entirely in Utah County, Utah, part of the Provo metropolitan area. The Geneva steel mill

1920-445: A hard but brittle martensitic structure. The steel is then tempered, which is just a specialized type of annealing, to reduce brittleness. In this application the annealing (tempering) process transforms some of the martensite into cementite, or spheroidite and hence it reduces the internal stresses and defects. The result is a more ductile and fracture-resistant steel. When iron is smelted from its ore, it contains more carbon than

2048-404: A joint technical committee to oversee the relatively new pelletizing technology. The technical committee, a historical first in the steel industry, would bring together specialists from Kaiser, Mitsubishi, and other Japanese steelmakers party to the deal, with the intent of continually improving the pelletized ore's quality. Mitsubishi would build another three 58,000 ton bulk carriers to transport

2176-609: A joint venture with mining company Conzinc Riotinto of Australia to develop iron mines in the Hamersley Range of Australia . Kaiser Steel would hold a 40% stake in the resulting company, Hamersley Iron Pty Ltd , which in the following year, signed a 30-year agreement with the Australian government. This agreement not only affirmed the mineral rights of Hamersley Iron (and Kaiser Steel) but tentatively offered government funding for standing up Australia's steel industry in

2304-412: A narrow range of concentrations of mixtures of carbon and iron that make steel, several different metallurgical structures, with very different properties can form. Understanding such properties is essential to making quality steel. At room temperature , the most stable form of pure iron is the body-centred cubic (BCC) structure called alpha iron or α-iron. It is a fairly soft metal that can dissolve only

2432-489: A number of groundwater monitoring wells around the perimeter of the plant. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is still unsure, however, if toxic chemicals are definitely moving toward Utah Lake. Liquidation of Geneva Steel's substantial assets may have broad effects on Utah County's future development. Geneva Steel's 1,750 acres (7 km ) of land were sold in November 2005 for $ 46.8 million to Anderson Geneva ,

2560-580: A resort that once operated nearby on the shore of Utah Lake . The plant was an integrated steel mill . Raw materials were shipped in by rail , processed into steel and steel products, and then reshipped by rail and truck to their final market. The plant, in addition to having all of the facilities for primary steel making, included on-site conversion of coal into coke , plus other facilities for post-processing of coal byproducts, including production of inorganic fertilizers . Blast furnaces converted raw iron ores into pig iron , and final conversion into steel

2688-422: A result, Kaiser Steel began diverting investment towards production and shipment of iron ore, both from Eagle Mountain and newly acquired mines. Kaiser Steel began its period of ore exports in 1961 by concluding a 10-year contract with Japanese trading company Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha Ltd., to ship 1 million tons of beneficiated iron ore annually from Eagle Mountain to Japan. Shipments would begin in late 1962 from

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2816-581: A sister company to Anderson Development , which plans to reuse the land for a wide range of purposes, including the FrontRunner commuter rail corridor. The land must undergo environmental cleanups before any development can occur, with most of the cost paid for by U.S. Steel. The mill equipment will not remain because it has been sold for $ 40 million to the Chinese firm Qingdao Iron & Steel Group . Most of Geneva Steel's water rights were sold to

2944-534: A small concentration of carbon, no more than 0.005% at 0 °C (32 °F) and 0.021 wt% at 723 °C (1,333 °F). The inclusion of carbon in alpha iron is called ferrite . At 910 °C, pure iron transforms into a face-centred cubic (FCC) structure, called gamma iron or γ-iron. The inclusion of carbon in gamma iron is called austenite. The more open FCC structure of austenite can dissolve considerably more carbon, as much as 2.1%, (38 times that of ferrite) carbon at 1,148 °C (2,098 °F), which reflects

3072-453: A steel's final rolling, it is heat treated for strength; however, this is relatively rare. Steel was known in antiquity and was produced in bloomeries and crucibles . The earliest known production of steel is seen in pieces of ironware excavated from an archaeological site in Anatolia ( Kaman-Kalehöyük ) which are nearly 4,000 years old, dating from 1800 BC. Wootz steel

3200-496: A time of expansion from its home town of Pittsburg, California , that expansion had also included the acquisition of the Llewellyn Iron Works Torrance plant, which made Columbia one of the largest if not outright the largest steel business on the U.S. Pacific Coast prior to World War II. Geneva Steel operated as a US government facility until June 1946, when it was sold for $ 47.5 million to U.S. Steel,

3328-481: A vast underbid compared to the mill's estimated $ 144 million value. But this was no different for many other war surplus facilities. Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered

3456-672: Is continuously cast into long slabs, cut and shaped into bars and extrusions and heat treated to produce a final product. Today, approximately 96% of steel is continuously cast, while only 4% is produced as ingots. The ingots are then heated in a soaking pit and hot rolled into slabs, billets , or blooms . Slabs are hot or cold rolled into sheet metal or plates. Billets are hot or cold rolled into bars, rods, and wire. Blooms are hot or cold rolled into structural steel , such as I-beams and rails . In modern steel mills these processes often occur in one assembly line , with ore coming in and finished steel products coming out. Sometimes after

3584-403: Is common for quench cracks to form when steel is water quenched, although they may not always be visible. There are many types of heat treating processes available to steel. The most common are annealing , quenching , and tempering . Annealing is the process of heating the steel to a sufficiently high temperature to relieve local internal stresses. It does not create a general softening of

3712-403: Is desirable. To become steel, it must be reprocessed to reduce the carbon to the correct amount, at which point other elements can be added. In the past, steel facilities would cast the raw steel product into ingots which would be stored until use in further refinement processes that resulted in the finished product. In modern facilities, the initial product is close to the final composition and

3840-453: Is distinguishable from wrought iron (now largely obsolete), which may contain a small amount of carbon but large amounts of slag . Iron is commonly found in the Earth's crust in the form of an ore , usually an iron oxide, such as magnetite or hematite . Iron is extracted from iron ore by removing the oxygen through its combination with a preferred chemical partner such as carbon which

3968-408: Is heat treated to contain both a ferritic and martensitic microstructure to produce a formable, high strength steel. Transformation Induced Plasticity (TRIP) steel involves special alloying and heat treatments to stabilize amounts of austenite at room temperature in normally austenite-free low-alloy ferritic steels. By applying strain, the austenite undergoes a phase transition to martensite without

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4096-535: Is known as stainless steel . Tungsten slows the formation of cementite , keeping carbon in the iron matrix and allowing martensite to preferentially form at slower quench rates, resulting in high-speed steel . The addition of lead and sulphur decrease grain size, thereby making the steel easier to turn , but also more brittle and prone to corrosion. Such alloys are nevertheless frequently used for components such as nuts, bolts, and washers in applications where toughness and corrosion resistance are not paramount. For

4224-691: Is often considered an indicator of economic progress, because of the critical role played by steel in infrastructural and overall economic development . In 1980, there were more than 500,000 U.S. steelworkers. By 2000, the number of steelworkers had fallen to 224,000. The economic boom in China and India caused a massive increase in the demand for steel. Between 2000 and 2005, world steel demand increased by 6%. Since 2000, several Indian and Chinese steel firms have expanded to meet demand, such as Tata Steel (which bought Corus Group in 2007), Baosteel Group and Shagang Group . As of 2017 , though, ArcelorMittal

4352-514: Is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the world, but also one of the most energy and greenhouse gas emission intense industries, contributing 8% of global emissions. However, steel is also very reusable: it is one of the world's most-recycled materials, with a recycling rate of over 60% globally . The noun steel originates from the Proto-Germanic adjective * * stahliją or * * stakhlijan 'made of steel', which

4480-463: Is one of the most commonly manufactured materials in the world. Steel is used in buildings, as concrete reinforcing rods, in bridges, infrastructure, tools, ships, trains, cars, bicycles, machines, electrical appliances, furniture, and weapons. Iron is always the main element in steel, but many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels , which are resistant to corrosion and oxidation , typically need an additional 11% chromium . Iron

4608-488: Is one of the world's most-recycled materials, with a recycling rate of over 60% globally; in the United States alone, over 82,000,000 metric tons (81,000,000 long tons; 90,000,000 short tons) were recycled in the year 2008, for an overall recycling rate of 83%. As more steel is produced than is scrapped, the amount of recycled raw materials is about 40% of the total of steel produced - in 2016, 1,628,000,000 tonnes (1.602 × 10 long tons; 1.795 × 10 short tons) of crude steel

4736-520: Is possible only by reducing iron's ductility. Steel was produced in bloomery furnaces for thousands of years, but its large-scale, industrial use began only after more efficient production methods were devised in the 17th century, with the introduction of the blast furnace and production of crucible steel . This was followed by the Bessemer process in England in the mid-19th century, and then by

4864-434: Is possible to make very high-carbon (and other alloy material) steels, but such are not common. Cast iron is not malleable even when hot, but it can be formed by casting as it has a lower melting point than steel and good castability properties. Certain compositions of cast iron, while retaining the economies of melting and casting, can be heat treated after casting to make malleable iron or ductile iron objects. Steel

4992-400: Is quite ductile , or soft and easily formed. In steel, small amounts of carbon, other elements, and inclusions within the iron act as hardening agents that prevent the movement of dislocations . The carbon in typical steel alloys may contribute up to 2.14% of its weight. Varying the amount of carbon and many other alloying elements, as well as controlling their chemical and physical makeup in

5120-457: Is related to * * stahlaz or * * stahliją 'standing firm'. The carbon content of steel is between 0.02% and 2.14% by weight for plain carbon steel ( iron - carbon alloys ). Too little carbon content leaves (pure) iron quite soft, ductile, and weak. Carbon contents higher than those of steel make a brittle alloy commonly called pig iron . Alloy steel is steel to which other alloying elements have been intentionally added to modify

5248-441: Is the base metal of steel. Depending on the temperature, it can take two crystalline forms (allotropic forms): body-centred cubic and face-centred cubic . The interaction of the allotropes of iron with the alloying elements, primarily carbon, gives steel and cast iron their range of unique properties. In pure iron, the crystal structure has relatively little resistance to the iron atoms slipping past one another, and so pure iron

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5376-547: Is the world's largest steel producer . In 2005, the British Geological Survey stated China was the top steel producer with about one-third of the world share; Japan , Russia , and the United States were second, third, and fourth, respectively, according to the survey. The large production capacity of steel results also in a significant amount of carbon dioxide emissions inherent related to

5504-498: Is then lost to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This process, known as smelting , was first applied to metals with lower melting points, such as tin , which melts at about 250 °C (482 °F), and copper , which melts at about 1,100 °C (2,010 °F), and the combination, bronze, which has a melting point lower than 1,083 °C (1,981 °F). In comparison, cast iron melts at about 1,375 °C (2,507 °F). Small quantities of iron were smelted in ancient times, in

5632-689: The Central Utah Water Conservancy District in May 2005 for $ 88.5 million, with some additional water rights sold for $ 14 million to the private firm Summit Vineyard, LLC, which has used them to support their Lake Side power plant . Its iron ore properties were sold for $ 10 million to Palladon Ventures Ltd, which hopes to build a new steel mill with modern technology closer to the iron ore mines. Geneva Steel's 7,000 tons of emission reduction credits are also for sale. In January 2006, local citizens announced they were forming

5760-590: The Eastern United States cut into the efficiency (and profitability) of the shipyards. Wartime demand and shortages only made reliance on the Eastern steel mills more painful. Aware of this and risks to shipping through the Panama Canal , US government planners supported rapidly standing up steel production near the West Coast. Political and personal reasons may have piqued Kaiser's interest in

5888-655: The Golconda area in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka , regions of India , as well as in Samanalawewa and Dehigaha Alakanda, regions of Sri Lanka . This came to be known as wootz steel , produced in South India by about the sixth century BC and exported globally. The steel technology existed prior to 326 BC in the region as they are mentioned in literature of Sangam Tamil , Arabic, and Latin as

6016-663: The Kaiser Fontana mill in 1949-1950 and also built a new blast furnace for the Fontana plant around the same time. In October 1948 Columbia Steel Co. opened a new 325,000 tons / year cold reduction and tin plate mill in Pittsburg, California . In May 1955 Consolidated Western's new pipe mill in Provo shipped its first deliveries. During its operation Geneva Steel was important to Utah County 's economy, providing thousands of jobs and attracting many ancillary businesses to

6144-581: The New Deal . Kaiser had also entered the shipbuilding business by 1940, focusing on merchant ships for the new United States Maritime Commission . As the war expanded, Kaiser would rapidly open seven Kaiser Shipyards on the West Coast of the US , with the four Richmond Shipyards located near San Francisco, California . From the beginning, however, the time and cost of purchasing and shipping steel from

6272-611: The Port of Long Beach when new 58,000 ton bulk carriers built by Mitsubishi entered operation. The contract terms established a base price of $ 8.65 per ton at a purity of 61% iron content, with adjustments for higher or lower purity shipments. By December 1963, Kaiser had boosted its partnership with Mitsubishi even further, negotiating an additional 6-year contract to ship 1 million tons annually of even higher-quality pelletized ore. The new contract included an option to extend to 10 years for 10 million cumulative tons, and also established

6400-536: The United Steelworkers (USW) initiated the nation-wide steel strike of 1959 , Fontana's USW Local 2869 forced Kaiser to idle the plant (unlike in 1946). However, Kaiser would yet again break from its competitors, who maintained a hard line on work rules and new (more productive and therefore potentially job-cutting) technology, to negotiate a gainsharing program modeled on the Scanlon plan . Dubbed

6528-599: The cementation process was described in a treatise published in Prague in 1574 and was in use in Nuremberg from 1601. A similar process for case hardening armour and files was described in a book published in Naples in 1589. The process was introduced to England in about 1614 and used to produce such steel by Sir Basil Brooke at Coalbrookdale during the 1610s. The raw material for this process were bars of iron. During

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6656-607: The open-hearth furnace . With the invention of the Bessemer process, a new era of mass-produced steel began. Mild steel replaced wrought iron . The German states were the major steel producers in Europe in the 19th century. American steel production was centred in Pittsburgh , Bethlehem, Pennsylvania , and Cleveland until the late 20th century. Currently, world steel production is centered in China, which produced 54% of

6784-422: The "Long Range Sharing Plan" (LRSP), it would reward unionized Steelworkers in proportion to the company's success, according to a theoretically fair formula. The Steelworkers, in exchange, would accept more flexible job tasks and productivity-enhancing innovations. The company would also continue to keep its facilities competitive, technologically and at scale, announcing another expansion program for 1957-1959. At

6912-410: The "Vulcan Mine" ( 35°0′45″N 115°39′13″W  /  35.01250°N 115.65361°W  / 35.01250; -115.65361  ( Kelso iron mine ) ), it would serve as the mill's primary source of ore until 1948. The next requirement would be limestone or dolomite . Either rock can be ground down and added to a blast furnace as a metallurgical flux , maintaining an ideal chemistry in

7040-445: The 17th century, it was realized that the best steel came from oregrounds iron of a region north of Stockholm , Sweden. This was still the usual raw material source in the 19th century, almost as long as the process was used. Crucible steel is steel that has been melted in a crucible rather than having been forged , with the result that it is more homogeneous. Most previous furnaces could not reach high enough temperatures to melt

7168-475: The 17th century, the first step in European steel production has been the smelting of iron ore into pig iron in a blast furnace . Originally employing charcoal, modern methods use coke , which has proven more economical. In these processes, pig iron made from raw iron ore was refined (fined) in a finery forge to produce bar iron , which was then used in steel-making. The production of steel by

7296-534: The 1960s, Kaiser Steel and competitor Geneva Steel , a U.S. Steel -owned plant near Salt Lake City, Utah , had captured most of the Pacific Coast steel market. Starting in the late 1960s though, Japanese and Korean steelmakers would begin out-competing the mill; despite attempts to adapt, the company would enter a steady decline until the mill closed in December 1983. Since then, much of the land in Fontana

7424-608: The Arabs from Persia, who took it from India. It was originally created from several different materials including various trace elements , apparently ultimately from the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis . In 327 BC, Alexander the Great was rewarded by the defeated King Porus , not with gold or silver but with 30 pounds of steel. A recent study has speculated that carbon nanotubes were included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though, given

7552-476: The Eastern mills could produce. Rail infrastructure also limited shipments to the West Coast. Though skeptical of expanding westward, this had led U.S. Steel to propose operating what would become the Geneva Steel plant in Utah. The company's only condition was that the government covered the plant's construction as a grant , arguing that the mill would likely become an uneconomical, stranded asset once

7680-720: The Fontana site presented some logistical disadvantages. However, the plant continued to grow in capacity after the war, adding more furnaces and metal rollers while also introducing new processes. The company would also eventually develop its own mines and railroad so that the steel mill formed a node in Kaiser's larger, vertically-integrated business: materials sourced from Kaiser-owned mines would yield steel for other Kaiser facilities (among other customers), and company workers would even receive medical care through Kaiser Permanente , an affiliated health maintenance organization . The Korean War led to another surge in production, and by

7808-524: The Kaiser Steel Corporation on December 1, 1941. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and direct US entry into World War II though, along with positive appraisals of Kaiser's existing factories, the US government switched its stance. Kaiser's proposal was fast-tracked and the RFC issued a loan of $ 110 million (equivalent to $ 1.62 billion in 2023) for construction of the mill, only with conditions. The government's first condition

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7936-470: The Linz-Donawitz process of basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS), developed in 1952, and other oxygen steel making methods. Basic oxygen steelmaking is superior to previous steelmaking methods because the oxygen pumped into the furnace limited impurities, primarily nitrogen, that previously had entered from the air used, and because, with respect to the open hearth process, the same quantity of steel from

8064-531: The Sunnyside coal mine in Utah, which could sustain current production for at least an estimated 80 years, Kaiser purchased 530,000 acres of coal-bearing land in Raton, New Mexico . The same year, Kaiser consolidated its flux supply by purchasing a large limestone deposit near Cushenbury, California , just 75 miles (121 km) from Fontana. At the opposite end of the value chain , Kaiser Steel would also acquire

8192-720: The US Pacific Coast, including the Kaiser Shipyards and other shipbuilders, still relied on expensive steel from the Eastern US. Beyond the cost of rail transport across country, high even under normal circumstances, the distant steel companies typically charged a large markup for Western customers (sometimes as high as $ 20 per ton). Capacity itself had also become an issue. Although the US had not yet directly entered World War II, US rearmament and support for allies had pushed demand for finished steel beyond what

8320-584: The Union Steel Co. of Los Angeles in 1955. A medium-sized business with approximately 300 employees on a 16.5 acre site, Union Steel had been founded in 1941 to fabricate structural elements and raise steel structures, but now also made aircraft and missile components. The acquisition would make Kaiser a truly, vertically integrated steel company, with a stake in all steps of the steel industry, from mining raw materials to assembling steel structures. Kaiser would continue to innovate organizationally too. When

8448-606: The Western market to Kaiser and Geneva Steel in Utah. However, in the coming years, the company would make a series of fateful decisions, particularly in relation to the Japanese steel market. By the early 1960s, Japan's economic recovery from WWII had accelerated, creating significant demand for steel and other materials. While Japanese metal refineries were not yet competitive internationally, Japanese government and industry had committed to rebuilding their own heavy industry . At

8576-560: The addition of heat. Twinning Induced Plasticity (TWIP) steel uses a specific type of strain to increase the effectiveness of work hardening on the alloy. Geneva Steel 40°19′N 111°45′W  /  40.317°N 111.750°W  / 40.317; -111.750 Geneva Steel was a steel mill located in Vineyard , Utah , United States , founded during World War II to enhance national steel output. It operated from December 1944 to November 2001. Its unique name came from

8704-407: The additional ore from California, with shipments expected to begin in late 1965. By May 1964, Kaiser and Mitsubishi were confident enough about the pelletized ore deal to renegotiate an 80% boost in shipments, for 1.8 million tons annually. Seeking even more opportunities to profit from Japanese demand for ore, Kaiser acquired sources beyond Eagle Mountain and even the US. In July 1962, Kaiser formed

8832-518: The advantage of the port. Yet Kaiser typically embraced a business strategy heavy on innovation and superior operations management . Also forecasting rapid growth in the Western market after the war, he believed the plant could still compete despite an unfavorable site. After surveying the area, the new steel company quickly settled on the town of Fontana in San Bernardino County for the mill. Just 55 miles (89 km) inland, it

8960-419: The area. As time went on, however, the plant's fortunes declined due to multiple factors increasing labor costs and pension woes, foreign imports, Utah's relative isolation from the rest of the United States and the general decline of manufacturing industries in the United States. On at least one occasion, Geneva Steel paid its workers in uncommon $ 2 bills intending to flood the local community with evidence of

9088-436: The austenite grain boundaries until the percentage of carbon in the grains has decreased to the eutectoid composition (0.8% carbon), at which point the pearlite structure forms. For steels that have less than 0.8% carbon (hypoeutectoid), ferrite will first form within the grains until the remaining composition rises to 0.8% of carbon, at which point the pearlite structure will form. No large inclusions of cementite will form at

9216-471: The austenite is for it to precipitate out of solution as cementite , leaving behind a surrounding phase of BCC iron called ferrite with a small percentage of carbon in solution. The two, cementite and ferrite, precipitate simultaneously producing a layered structure called pearlite , named for its resemblance to mother of pearl . In a hypereutectoid composition (greater than 0.8% carbon), the carbon will first precipitate out as large inclusions of cementite at

9344-494: The boundaries in hypoeutectoid steel. The above assumes that the cooling process is very slow, allowing enough time for the carbon to migrate. As the rate of cooling is increased the carbon will have less time to migrate to form carbide at the grain boundaries but will have increasingly large amounts of pearlite of a finer and finer structure within the grains; hence the carbide is more widely dispersed and acts to prevent slip of defects within those grains, resulting in hardening of

9472-521: The characteristics of steel. Common alloying elements include: manganese , nickel , chromium , molybdenum , boron , titanium , vanadium , tungsten , cobalt , and niobium . Additional elements, most frequently considered undesirable, are also important in steel: phosphorus , sulphur , silicon , and traces of oxygen , nitrogen , and copper . Plain carbon-iron alloys with a higher than 2.1% carbon content are known as cast iron . With modern steelmaking techniques such as powder metal forming, it

9600-404: The company arise. The first public notice of the coming mill would appear in the local Fontana newspaper 6 March 1942. Less than a month later, by 3 April, the company would break ground on the new site. The project and construction continued progressing rapidly, fast enough in fact that by 30 December of that year, the plant's coke ovens were already in operation, and Henry J. Kaiser himself

9728-422: The desired properties. Nickel and manganese in steel add to its tensile strength and make the austenite form of the iron-carbon solution more stable, chromium increases hardness and melting temperature, and vanadium also increases hardness while making it less prone to metal fatigue . To inhibit corrosion, at least 11% chromium can be added to steel so that a hard oxide forms on the metal surface; this

9856-512: The expansion project would include: As in WWII, the onset of the Korean War boosted Pacific shipbuilding and demand for economical steel. Over the course of the war, Kaiser Steel would wind up expanding its workforce by almost 50%. Additionally, the company would purchase the entire Utah Fuel Company outright in 1950, including the previously leased Sunnyside mine. The company would also seize

9984-399: The expansion, which included: Kaiser Steel entered the 1960s more productive than ever, reaping the benefits of its recent expansion and breaking 18 records in 1961. The next year, the company would deliver a final blow to its competitors in the Eastern US with significant price cuts. No longer able to charge a premium for shipping steel cross-country, the Eastern steel makers mostly abandoned

10112-413: The final steel (either as solute elements, or as precipitated phases), impedes the movement of the dislocations that make pure iron ductile, and thus controls and enhances its qualities. These qualities include the hardness , quenching behaviour , need for annealing , tempering behaviour , yield strength , and tensile strength of the resulting steel. The increase in steel's strength compared to pure iron

10240-648: The finest steel in the world exported to the Roman, Egyptian, Chinese and Arab worlds at that time – what they called Seric Iron . A 200 BC Tamil trade guild in Tissamaharama , in the South East of Sri Lanka, brought with them some of the oldest iron and steel artifacts and production processes to the island from the classical period . The Chinese and locals in Anuradhapura , Sri Lanka had also adopted

10368-626: The first plate steel rolled off the Kaiser Steel production line; it would go into the hull of a Liberty ship , Richard Moczkowski, built at Kaiser's Richmond No. 2 yard. and launched on August 22. The majority of Kaiser Steel plate produced for WWII, however, would actually go to the California Shipbuilding yard on Los Angeles' Terminal Island , a mere 50 miles (80 km) from Fontana and massive enough to soak up most plate production. Another destination for Fontana steel

10496-513: The form of charcoal) in a crucible, was produced in Merv by the 9th to 10th century AD. In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, inhomogeneous steel, and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that used partial decarburization via repeated forging under a cold blast . Since

10624-559: The furnace while also binding the ore's waste minerals into slag . This ingredient posed no problem for the Kaiser plant either, as both rocks available nearby from various quarries in California and Nevada. The mill would require one more input though: abundant metallurgical coal , which would be converted to coke first, then added to the blast furnace. With no available deposits within Southern California, or even neighboring Arizona and Nevada, sourcing coal would be one of

10752-446: The future. By early 1964, Hamersley Iron had already begun negotiating an initial 15-year contract for iron ore exports to Japan, at a rate several times larger than Kaiser Steel's exports from Eagle Mountain. The late 1960s and early 1970s would prove very different from the previous 15 years of prosperity for Kaiser Steel. As Mike Davis remarks, several deeply ironic problems began to drag the company down. Two decades after Kaiser Steel

10880-599: The hardenability of thick sections. High strength low alloy steel has small additions (usually < 2% by weight) of other elements, typically 1.5% manganese, to provide additional strength for a modest price increase. Recent corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) regulations have given rise to a new variety of steel known as Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS). This material is both strong and ductile so that vehicle structures can maintain their current safety levels while using less material. There are several commercially available grades of AHSS, such as dual-phase steel , which

11008-465: The heart of the program, Fontana would add a 4th blast furnace for pig iron and supplement its 9 open hearths with 3 modern basic oxygen furnaces (BOFs), almost doubling its steel ingot capacity. Kaiser estimated that after the expansion, they would finally become the largest steel manufacturer in the American West. By the completion of the program in 1959, the company had spent $ 214 million on

11136-515: The lowest bid. Undeterred and buoyed by a large contract to provide steel for a major gas pipeline , the company would initiate a major expansion in late 1948. The centerpiece would be a 2nd blast furnace announced in January 1949, to be constructed by Consolidated Western Steel , the same contractor that had built furnace #1 in 1942. The completed furnace, nicknamed "Bess No. 2", would be " blown in " later that year on 13 October 1949. Altogether,

11264-439: The main production route. At the end of 2008, the steel industry faced a sharp downturn that led to many cut-backs. In 2021, it was estimated that around 7% of the global greenhouse gas emissions resulted from the steel industry. Reduction of these emissions are expected to come from a shift in the main production route using cokes, more recycling of steel and the application of carbon capture and storage technology. Steel

11392-416: The mill open and running at full capacity. With European industry largely in ruins and other US mills on strike, Kaiser could sell into a global steel shortage at a large markup , even exporting some to the typically out-of-reach European market. Kaiser mining engineers and metallurgists also oversaw significant efficiency improvements, both at Eagle Mountain and in the Fontana mill. Yet Kaiser suffered

11520-450: The most part, however, p-block elements such as sulphur, nitrogen , phosphorus , and lead are considered contaminants that make steel more brittle and are therefore removed from steel during the melting processing. The density of steel varies based on the alloying constituents but usually ranges between 7,750 and 8,050 kg/m (484 and 503 lb/cu ft), or 7.75 and 8.05 g/cm (4.48 and 4.65 oz/cu in). Even in

11648-410: The nearest junction on Southern Pacific's main line, which could carry freight onward for the remaining 101 miles (163 km) to Fontana. The company would achieve several tactical successes in the immediate post-war period too. When the 1946 United States steel strike erupted as part of the wider United States strike wave of 1945–1946 , Kaiser's more collaborative approach to organized labor kept

11776-614: The new mine; the first test charge of Eagle Mountain ore was added to the Fontana blast furnace in June 1947. Though the mine was now operational, it was too far from existing rail facilities to serve as the mill's primary iron source. To solve this problem, Kaiser rapidly planned and built its own rail line. At a cost of $ 3,800,000, the new 52 miles (84 km) Eagle Mountain Railroad was completed on July 29, 1948, after just 11 months of work. The company-owned line connected Eagle Mountain to

11904-509: The opportunity to significantly restructure its finances on the advice of Kaiser's banker Giannini. In October 1950, Kaiser Steel would announce a financial plan to raise $ 125 million, sourced from: The company would first deploy its fresh capital towards paying off its government RFC loan, at a balance over $ 91 million, in full. With this lingering debt out of the way, it then turned its attention towards another expansion program, estimated to cost $ 24.5 million. The expansion program consisted of

12032-436: The oxidation rate of iron increases rapidly beyond 800 °C (1,470 °F), it is important that smelting take place in a low-oxygen environment. Smelting, using carbon to reduce iron oxides, results in an alloy ( pig iron ) that retains too much carbon to be called steel. The excess carbon and other impurities are removed in a subsequent step. Other materials are often added to the iron/carbon mixture to produce steel with

12160-675: The plant with the help of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch . They tried to keep it open for as long as possible. However, in March 1999 the company filed bankruptcy and reorganized with a $ 110 million loan via the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Act of 1999, but the reorganization attempt failed. Geneva Steel filed bankruptcy again and shut down permanently in November 2002. There is some controversy regarding their alleged pollution of Utah Lake. Contaminated groundwater under

12288-407: The plant to failure. Flux and iron ore were particularly economical, and versus competitors, the cost of transporting finished steel from Fontana to the California coast was insignificant. The mill's coal costs, however, would largely negate these advantages. With costlier coal than any other blast furnace in the US, the plant would have to excel operationally to survive in the market. In August 1943,

12416-543: The plant's importance to the economy. Early in 1987 the mill shut down temporarily, but reopened later after the mill was spun off from US Steel and purchased by local business interests. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, students from Brigham Young University (BYU) protested the pollution, particularly the particulate matters, emitted from the steel operation. They carried signs at the entrance of BYU football games that included slogans like, "Pollution makes God barf." The Cannon Brothers ( Christopher and Joseph ) bought

12544-455: The plant's main challenges throughout its lifetime. At first, Kaiser Steel would be forced to look as far as Sunnyside, Utah , specifically Utah Fuel Company Mine No. 2 ( 39°33′19″N 110°22′45″W  /  39.55521°N 110.37909°W  / 39.55521; -110.37909  ( Sunnyside coal mine ) ), which Kaiser would lease entirely in 1943. In combination, Kaiser Steel's logistical costs (measured in ton-miles) did not doom

12672-449: The product but only locally relieves strains and stresses locked up within the material. Annealing goes through three phases: recovery , recrystallization , and grain growth . The temperature required to anneal a particular steel depends on the type of annealing to be achieved and the alloying constituents. Quenching involves heating the steel to create the austenite phase then quenching it in water or oil . This rapid cooling results in

12800-759: The production methods of creating wootz steel from the Chera Dynasty Tamils of South India by the 5th century AD. In Sri Lanka, this early steel-making method employed a unique wind furnace, driven by the monsoon winds, capable of producing high-carbon steel. Since the technology was acquired from the Tamilians from South India, the origin of steel technology in India can be conservatively estimated at 400–500 BC. The manufacture of wootz steel and Damascus steel , famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge, may have been taken by

12928-459: The requirement in order to handicap the facility's post-war potential. Common wisdom in the steel industry was that a facility could not be profitable if more than one of the main links in its supply chain (inputs or products) relied on ground transport. An integrated mill at Los Angeles would already be risky, with reliance on rail transport for regional ore and coal only partly mitigated by easy port access. A plant further inland would lose even

13056-611: The same time, the larger Kaiser conglomerate would pause further modernization at Fontana for the remainder of the 1960s. According to scholar Mike Davis , Henry J. Kaiser's retirement in the mid-1950s may have been a significant influence. Motivated by wealth management more than entrepreneurship or technical innovation, the Kaiser heirs began to prioritize Kaiser Aluminum , the conglomerate's most profitable subsidiary . Their primary concern became supporting aluminum sales to foreign buyers with other commodities, rather than maintaining Kaiser Steel's competitive edge in steel production. As

13184-433: The site in the early 1940s, producing millions of tons of steel for the war effort. After the war, U.S. Steel ran the company until 1987 when it sold the plant to Geneva Steel Company. During its years of operation, the facility produced wastes contaminated with human carcinogens and hazardous substances including arsenic, lead, zinc, nickel, acids, PCBs and petroleum products. Arsenic, ammonia, and benzene recently showed up in

13312-669: The slabbing mill were in regular operation. After the purchase by U.S. Steel, the Geneva plant was started up again. By August 1946, 2 of 3 blast furnaces, 2 of 4 coke oven batteries, 3 of 9 open heath furnaces, the slabbing mill and the plate mill were in operation, but not the structural mill. Employment at the mill, the Horse Canyon coal mine and the limestone and dolomite quarry at Payson rose to slightly more than 2000. The Consolidated Steel Corporation of Los Angeles bought approximately 60,000 tons of 31 feet by 92 inches plates for

13440-477: The solid-state, by heating the ore in a charcoal fire and then welding the clumps together with a hammer and in the process squeezing out the impurities. With care, the carbon content could be controlled by moving it around in the fire. Unlike copper and tin, liquid or solid iron dissolves carbon quite readily. All of these temperatures could be reached with ancient methods used since the Bronze Age . Since

13568-401: The steel. At the very high cooling rates produced by quenching, the carbon has no time to migrate but is locked within the face-centred austenite and forms martensite . Martensite is a highly strained and stressed, supersaturated form of carbon and iron and is exceedingly hard but brittle. Depending on the carbon content, the martensitic phase takes different forms. Below 0.2% carbon, it takes on

13696-561: The steel. The early modern crucible steel industry resulted from the invention of Benjamin Huntsman in the 1740s. Blister steel (made as above) was melted in a crucible or in a furnace, and cast (usually) into ingots. The modern era in steelmaking began with the introduction of Henry Bessemer 's process in 1855, the raw material for which was pig iron. His method let him produce steel in large quantities cheaply, thus mild steel came to be used for most purposes for which wrought iron

13824-422: The street from the old Geneva Steel Pipe Mill facility on the site of an old truck stop serving the many trucks that visited the plant. The building is constructed from salvaged materials and beams from various mill buildings with the interior walls, doors, and partitions coming from other mill buildings and offices. In 2014 Utah Valley University purchased 125 acres of the Geneva Steel site in order to expand to

13952-561: The technology of that time, such qualities were produced by chance rather than by design. Natural wind was used where the soil containing iron was heated by the use of wood. The ancient Sinhalese managed to extract a ton of steel for every 2 tons of soil, a remarkable feat at the time. One such furnace was found in Samanalawewa and archaeologists were able to produce steel as the ancients did. Crucible steel , formed by slowly heating and cooling pure iron and carbon (typically in

14080-525: The upper carbon content of steel, beyond which is cast iron. When carbon moves out of solution with iron, it forms a very hard, but brittle material called cementite (Fe 3 C). When steels with exactly 0.8% carbon (known as a eutectoid steel), are cooled, the austenitic phase (FCC) of the mixture attempts to revert to the ferrite phase (BCC). The carbon no longer fits within the FCC austenite structure, resulting in an excess of carbon. One way for carbon to leave

14208-451: The war and the steel plant was put into development. Geneva shipped its first order in April 1944, comprising over 600 tons of steel plate. The thousands of new jobs created by the plant were hard to fill as many men were overseas fighting; women began working to make up the difference, filling 25 percent of the plant's workforce. To acknowledge Utah's and Geneva Steel's contribution during

14336-508: The war ended and demand returned to peacetime levels. Kaiser, more optimistic about a western mill's long-term prospects and sensing an opportunity to outflank U.S. Steel, offered to build his own facility without any grants, just loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). Kaiser's initial plans from April 1941 were not necessarily for an integrated mill, but to refine steel ingots along with

14464-627: The war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden. The initial first stage construction encompassed a plant on 1600 acres. The main constituent facilities were Ground was broken in April 1942. On December 23, 1943 the first coke oven battery was charged. The first trial runs of the plate mill took place on March 23, 1944. By that date 2 blast furnaces, 3 open hearth furnaces and

14592-428: The world's steel in 2023. Further refinements in the process, such as basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS), largely replaced earlier methods by further lowering the cost of production and increasing the quality of the final product. Today more than 1.6 billion tons of steel is produced annually. Modern steel is generally identified by various grades defined by assorted standards organizations . The modern steel industry

14720-575: Was a government-owned and Kaiser-operated ordnance forging plant, conveniently just 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Fontana, with PP&E including: Over the course of WWII, Kaiser Steel's overall output would exceed even the much larger Geneva Steel mill in Utah. This was partly due to Kaiser finishing construction and starting production earlier than its competitor. The mill's steel ingot production would total 1,209,000 short tons (1,097,000 t), with uses including but not limited to: Kaiser's nearby Vulcan Mine yielded iron ore that, while usable,

14848-418: Was about as close to the sea as the government's conditions allowed. Additionally, it had excellent railroad connections and an especially good water supply network for the region, including its own hydroelectric plant. Kaiser may have been drawn to the smaller, rural community too, both for sentimental reasons and a shrewd recognition that local government would likely be more compliant should any disputes with

14976-398: Was cheap thanks to the hydroelectric plant at Hoover Dam. The area could also provide existing infrastructure and a large labor force. Government planners did not respond enthusiastically at first, and Kaiser's proposal was delayed indefinitely, nominally because of doubts about sourcing raw materials. Throughout this time, Kaiser continued working on the proposal and formally incorporated

15104-718: Was developed in Southern India and Sri Lanka in the 1st millennium BCE. Metal production sites in Sri Lanka employed wind furnaces driven by the monsoon winds, capable of producing high-carbon steel. Large-scale wootz steel production in India using crucibles occurred by the sixth century BC, the pioneering precursor to modern steel production and metallurgy. High-carbon steel was produced in Britain at Broxmouth Hillfort from 490–375 BC, and ultrahigh-carbon steel

15232-509: Was formerly used. The Gilchrist-Thomas process (or basic Bessemer process ) was an improvement to the Bessemer process, made by lining the converter with a basic material to remove phosphorus. Another 19th-century steelmaking process was the Siemens-Martin process , which complemented the Bessemer process. It consisted of co-melting bar iron (or steel scrap) with pig iron. These methods of steel production were rendered obsolete by

15360-485: Was founded, in part to help fight imperial Japan, Japanese steel makers rapidly began to seize market share from the company. Even more ironic, Kaiser Steel enthusiastically supplied the very same Japanese companies with iron ore and coal from its mining division throughout. Steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon with improved strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Because of its high tensile strength and low cost, steel

15488-465: Was given the honor of starting the blast furnace. More sections of the mill would come online through the following year. By 15 December 1943, the facility occupied 1,300 acres (530 ha) of land and included the following property, plant, and equipment (PP&E): The complete steelmaking process requires significant amounts of energy. Thankfully for the Fontana plant, hydroelectric plants at Hoover Dam and more locally at Lytle Creek could provide

15616-506: Was lower-quality, and so the company had begun looking for a more sustainable deposit very early on. In 1944, with WWII still ongoing, the company purchased a mining claim from Southern Pacific Railroad in Eagle Mountain, California ( 33°51′27″N 115°29′14″W  /  33.85750°N 115.48722°W  / 33.85750; -115.48722  ( Eagle Mountain iron mine ) ). It would take another few years to complete

15744-438: Was produced globally, with 630,000,000 tonnes (620,000,000 long tons; 690,000,000 short tons) recycled. Modern steels are made with varying combinations of alloy metals to fulfil many purposes. Carbon steel , composed simply of iron and carbon, accounts for 90% of steel production. Low alloy steel is alloyed with other elements, usually molybdenum , manganese, chromium, or nickel, in amounts of up to 10% by weight to improve

15872-757: Was produced in the Netherlands from the 2nd-4th centuries AD. The Roman author Horace identifies steel weapons such as the falcata in the Iberian Peninsula , while Noric steel was used by the Roman military . The Chinese of the Warring States period (403–221 BC) had quench-hardened steel, while Chinese of the Han dynasty (202 BC—AD 220) created steel by melting together wrought iron with cast iron, thus producing

16000-550: Was sold to create the Auto Club Speedway , while a small portion of the plant still performs rolling operations under different ownership as California Steel Industries . Prior to World War II, Henry J. Kaiser was already an established industrialist in construction , even participating in the Six Companies , the joint venture tasked with building Hoover Dam and other large infrastructure projects during

16128-439: Was that the mill's initial size would be limited to wartime demand. The second, much more oppressive requirement was that the mill be sited at least 50 miles (80 km) inland, not in a tidewater area. The primary reason given for restricting the location was to limit the facility's vulnerability to a potential Japanese raid, but some such as writer and consultant A.G. Mezerik believed Eastern competitors had quietly lobbied for

16256-403: Was the setting for a dance montage by the lead character, Ren McCormack. Early in 2007, the site made headlines in the Utah press, as owner Anderson Geneva made an offer to Real Salt Lake . The deal included moving their stadium to the Geneva site and they (Anderson Geneva) would offer up the land for free. The offer was subsequently turned down. Timpanogos Harley-Davidson is located across

16384-590: Was via open hearth furnaces . Rolling mill facilities for forming steel into plate, and some structural shapes were also located there. At its peak of operations Geneva Steel was the largest steel mill west of the Mississippi River and produced 60 percent of the steel used in the Western United States . The Geneva Steel mill was constructed with federal funds from November 1941 to December 1944 by Columbia Steel Company (since 1930

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