Introduction

The ultimate goal of a manufacturing engineer is to produce steel components with required geometrical shape and structurally optimized for a given application. One of the method is the deformation processing. Deformation processing exploits the ability of steel to flow plastically without altering the other properties. The required forces are often very high. Cast ingots, slabs, blooms and billets are reduced in size and converted into plates, sheets, rods and others. These forms experience further deformation to produce the desired products formed by processes such as forging, extrusion and other sheet metal forming. The deformation may be bulk flow in three dimensions, simple shearing, simple bending, or any combination of these and other processes. The stresses could either be tensile or compressive or shear or combination of them. In this connection the steel chemistry and cleanliness are important factors for deformation processing.

In the following, some aspect of deformation processing is discussed. This is given to appreciate the efforts of steelmakers in producing quality steels. The readers should also understand the reverse engineering approach and to appreciate the steelmaking. Deformation processing can be carried out either under hot or cold condition. In the following general features of hot and cold working are described. Details can be obtained in any text book on deformation processing.