The properties of cast iron, wrought iron and steel

Cast iron has good compressive strength but relatively poor tensile strength.

Because of the impurities in cast iron and its crystalline structure, although it is a strong material in compression, it is
weak in tension and is very brittle. As a result when it failed it did so in an explosive manner with little warning. It can be
subject to blemishes and flaws, hence the warning made by a 19th century ironwork contractor: "It is not the masses of
metal that constitute strength, but the judicious proportions and forms of the casting".

The casting process enables the production of complex shapes.

Because it is produced by casting, ie. made by pouring into a mould, it is well suited to the production of intricate shapes,
both structural and decorative. For structural use, cast iron was best suited to elements where the predominant load
caused compression; and so was most commonly used for columns.

Wrought iron has better tensile strength than cast iron and is more ductile.

Wrought iron has better properties than cast iron for structural use. Because of its low carbon content wrought iron is
ductile, 'tough' and has good resistance to corrosion. It is more fibrous in texture, highly ductile, and is strong in both
tension and compression.

The cross-sectional shapes of cast and wrought iron were generally different.

Due to the nature of cast iron, the beams produced were usually of a non-symmetric cross section, the tensile flange
(nearly always the lower flange) being much larger than the compressive flange
In the final stage of production wrought iron is hammered or rolled so, in its killed (as opposed to forged) form, it usually
occurs in simple shapes of constant section such as plates, tees, angles and bars.

Because of the nature of the puddling process that was used to produce the material, wrought iron was produced
in small volumes.

The puddling process involved remelting pig iron and then mixing in air to oxidise the carbon. The material so produced
would typically have very low carbon contents of around 0.05%. Some of the impurities remaining in the material exist as
pockets of slag which are stretched out into long threads during the hammering or rolling processes that were used to
form it into structural sections. These long threads give wrought iron the characteristic fibrous appearance mentioned
above.

Wrought iron was more expensive than cast iron and could not be moulded into the kind of ornate shapes
characteristic of cast iron.

The properties of wrought iron made it better for structural purposes than cast iron but the structural elements produced
were small in both length and cross section. Thus beams in wrought iron generally spanned relatively short distances. In
addition, sections in wrought iron were often compound, being built up by rivetting together (sometimes many) smaller
sections.

The Bessemer process for converting iron into steel was patented in 1855.

Although the Bessemer process was patented in 1855, for the next 15-20 years, wrought and cast iron continued to
satisfy most of the demand for iron-based building products, due mainly to problems of producing steel from alkaline
ores. These problems, caused principally by the presence of phosphorous, were solved by Gilchrist and Thomas in 1879.
 Cheap steels, similar to those used today were available from about 1870 (though cast and wrought iron continued to
dominate sales until around 1880). These steels had high tensile and compressive strengths plus good ductility.

The railway industry was responsible for the initial growth in the steel industry where it was used for rails (1860s), wheels
and axles (around 1870) and boilers (1872).

The use of steel for structural purposes was initially slow.

For 25 years after the introduction of the Bessemer process in 1855 the use of steel in structures was tentative. It was not
until 1880 that an era of construction based on reliable mild steel began. By that date the quality of steels being produced
had become reasonably consistent so engineers began to discuss what permissible stresses were appropriate for the
different structural uses to which this new material might be put.

As the rolling process has evolved the efficiencies of the cross sectional shapes have improved.

The common cross sectional shapes used in structures have remained very similar for many years (the I section, the
angle and the tee). Early I section beams in the late 1800s had to be rolled with tapered flanges, and it was not until 1959
that Dorman Long introduced the rolling of sections with parallel flanges and sharp corners.

Parallel flanges gave two beneficial characteristics:

more material was pushed into the flanges where it was most effective in helping to carry bending stresses and to
resist deflection.

tapered washers were no longer needed for the inside flange face of bolt holes

Basically irons are classified into 3 types . They are Cast Iron, Wrought Iron and Steel.
1-Cast Iron:-It is the most impure form of iron and contains the highest percentage of carbon from 2.5to 5 percent and about 2
percent of other impurities like Si, P, Mn and S.

Cast Iron is of 2 types they are:

a-White Cast Iron:-Carbon is present in the form of cementite and Fe3C.
B-Grey Cast Iron:-carbon is present in the form of graphite. Cast Iron melts at about 12500C (due to presence of impurities) where as
pure iron melts at 15300C.

The Molten cast iron expands on solidification and hence it produces good castings. Cast iron does not rust easily and neither be
tempered. Due to high carbon content, it is hard and brittle and cannot be welded.

2-Wrought iron:-It is the purest form of iron. It contains the lowest percentage of carbon 0.1 to 0.25% and 0.35 other impurities. It is
manufactured from cast iron by pudding process.

Wrought iron is manufactured inn a special type of reverberatory furnace called pudding furnace, the hearth of which
haematite,Fe2O3.

The Semi-solid mass is taken out in the form of balls and is beaten under steam hammers to squeeze out as much of slag is known as
wrought iron.

Properties of Wrought iron

Wrought iron is extremely touched, highly malleable and ductile.

It softens at about 10000C and then it can be forced and welded.
In the presence of very small percentage of slag, it has fibrous structure and thus, can with stand high stresses.
Wrought iron is resistant towards rusting and corrosion.

Uses:-It is used to make chains, nails, hooks, bolts, agriculture implements, electromagnents, bars and wires etc.

3-Steel:-It is the most important commercial variety of iron. The percentage of carbon in the form of iron is midway between that of
cast iron and wrought iron, ie 0.25 to 2%.There are many varieties of steel depending on the amount of carbon present in it.

A-Mild Steels:-Mild steels contain low percentage of carbon such as steels show the properties of wrought iron along with elasticity
and hardness.
B-Hard Steels:-Hard Steels contain high percentage of carbon .They are hard and brittle.
C- Special Steels or alloy steels:-Steel mixed with small amount of nickel, cobalt, chromium, tungsten, molybdenum and manganese.
 Manufacture of Steel:-
The Bessemers process:-The process in which based on the fact that impurities of pig iron are completely oxidized in presence of
hot air blast i.e. virtually wrought iron is obtained.

The Molten pig iron is introduced in the converter and a blast hot air is blown through it from the bottom and keeping the mouth of the
converter vertically upwards. Silica and manganese present in pig are first oxidizes and then combine to form slag.

Carbon is oxidised to carbon monoxide which burns with flame at the mouth of the converter.When whole of the carbon is oxidised
the blue flame suddenly dies out. The air supply is stopped for a while and the requisite amount of spiegeleisen is added.

Open hearth process or Siemens:-The hearth is lined with silica or calcined dolomite (CaO.MgO) depending upon the nature of
impurities present in pig or cast iron.
A high temperature of about 15000C is generated by burning producer gas which works on regenerative system of heat economy.

The electric Process:-

The Process consists of heating of the charge having pig or cast iron, scrap iron , iron ore (haematite)and lime in an electro furnace
using vertical carbon electrodes. When the arc is struck between the electrodes ,the high temperature of about 20000C generated ,
melts the charge and chemical reactions start instantaneously.

Definitions of what is meant by cast iron, wrought iron and

steel
Cast iron, wrought iron and steel are all essentially alloys of iron and carbon.

Although the actual situation is much more complex, cast iron, wrought iron and steel can all be thought of as alloys, principally of
iron and carbon. To complicate matters, though, it is worth mentioning that there are no precise definitions of the relative make -up of
the three types of steel.
Iron is extracted from naturally occurring ores and we can think of these ores as providing the source material, iron oxide
(FeO).

In the early days of iron and steel production iron oxide ores were mined but the sources of iron oxide have now been worked out.

When iron oxide is heated at high temperatures it becomes transformed into iron.

When iron oxide is heated at high temperatures of 1600 to 3000F the oxide is reduced to the metal and the resulting reaction can be
expressed as:

Iron Oxide + Carbon heated along with a blast of air yields Iron + Carbon Monoxide (a gas released into the air)

i.e. FeO + C > Fe + CO

In practice, this process does not yield pure iron, but an impure product called pig iron. This pig iron contains impurities such as Iron
Carbide (Fe3C) which make the material hard and brittle. It is, however, the raw material from which cast iron, wrought iron and steel
can be produced.

Pig iron, which is essentially cast iron, derives its name from the shape of the casting beds which resemble piglets being suckled by
the sow and the pigs were the billets as supplied to the foundries.

Cast iron is the material produced by remelting this iron (known as pig iron), possibly along with some scrap iron.

The remelting of pig iron, and scrap iron, whilst blowing air into the molten mass until the Carbon content is between 2.4 and 4.0%
produces Contemporary Cast Iron which can exist in two forms: grey (Graphite) cast iron and white (Iron Carbide) cast iron.

In the early days of cast iron production, it was difficult to control the level of carbon and other impurities such as sulphur (which has
a particularly detrimental effect on the properties of iron). This means that the strength and properties of the material were very much
a hit-and-miss affair. Nor was it possible to be sure that the molten material had been able to flow through all of the mould before
setting. Consequently, the early cast iron structural elements were often load tested before being used in a building. And putty was
sometimes used to plug holes in large section such as circular columns.

Wrought iron is achieved by simple reprocessing of cast iron.

The strength deficiencies of cast iron were eventually partly addressed by the development of a process termed "puddling". This
involved reheating cast iron and manually mixing air in with the molten mass. Because of the nature of the puddling process the
volumes that could be produced by this process at any one time were small. This, in turn, limited the size of structural components that
could be made of this type of iron.

The material produced this way had reasonably high tensile strengths and was much more ductile than cast iron.

The process of producing wrought iron improves the tensile strength. This made it suitable for beams, and the ductility meant that its
behaviour in column elements was more predictable than cast iron. However, its use in columns was rare due to the comparative cost
of cast and wrought iron.

The production of true wrought iron in Britain ceased in 1973, so what is marketed today under that name is either old material
recycled or a type of mild steel.

The invention of the Bessemer process allowed the oxidisation process after remelting to be carefully controlled and the carbon
content could therefore be held at a particular level, providing good tensile strength and ductility.

In what we refer to today as steel the carbon content will typically be below 1%. For most structural steel the actual value will be in
the region of 0.2%. It is the addition of elements such as silicon and manganese that allow the carbon levels to be controlled with some
accuracy, and the manganese also has the beneficial effect of neutralising the otherwise harmful effects of sulphur.

The resulting material has equally high tensile and compressive strengths along with a high degree of ductility.

There is a wide range of steels which can be classified in various ways.

The terminology relating to the classification of different steel types is not precise. Broadly speaking steels are described in the
following table.
Mild Steels up to 0.3% Carbon

Medium Carbon Steels (or simply Carbon Steels) 0.3 to 0.6 % carbon

High Carbon Steels over 0.6% Carbon

To form steel into the kind of sections used in structures ingots are heated and then forged or rolled repeatedly, each repetition getting
closer to the desired cross sectional shape.
Definition of Iron, Steel, and Cast Iron as a basic introduction
Iron. Chemical symbol "Fe".
Iron is a general word used to describe metals that have pure iron as their main constituent. Sometimes the word iron is
used as simile of something hard like an "iron lady".
Most iron wares around us are not made of chemically pure iron but are alloys, the most important of which is Carbon.
Carbon is a big factor in understanding the difference between Iron, Steel and Cast iron. Adding some carbon to
chemically pure iron makes steel. Add even more and you'll make cast iron

Iron
Technically, iron means just that, chemically pure iron. Without carbon, iron is very soft and ductile.
Iron become softer upon heating. So a smith can change its shape by hammering but it can never be hardened by heat
treatment.

Steel
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. The amount of carbon dictates whether a steel is hard or it is tough.
Adding Carbon makes the iron harder. The more carbon the harder the steel. Carbon content in steel usually falls a
range between 0.3 ~ 1.5 % by volume.
Iron /carbon alloys within this range are called steels.
Steels can be forged and hardened by heat treatment. The high carbon steel is harder than the low carbon steel. Because
carbon content is critical to hardening, the effect of heat treatment is big on high carbon steel, and small on low carbon
steels.
In other words, high carbon steels are more sensitive to tempering work. High carbon steels undergo structural changes
when heated and cooled rapidly making them useful for items that require degrees of hardness.
High carbon steels appear some different phases that come from the difference of the situation in tempering work. The
result of relation between sensitive steel and good tempering work makes subtle appearances on blade surface.

Cast Iron
Carbon content over 1.5 % make iron alloys brittle, non-ductile and unable be worked by hammering. Also these alloys
can't be hardened by heat treatment.
Such metals are easy to melt, and easy to break by hammering. Therefore they are used only for casting work.

Therefore we can see that iron, steel, and cast iron form a family based on the absence or degree of carbon content.

Although iron is not used for blades it can be used for tsuba and other fittings like fuchi/kashira, kuirikata, and kojiri
etc.
Low carbon steel is used for various kinds of tools and arms.
Most good tsubas are made of low carbon steel. Some "dubious" tsuba are made of cast iron. (=> Tsuba of cast iron)
High carbon steel is used for cutting edges of blades and tools.
Usually a blade is made of combination with some kinds of steel. (=> construction)

Sword smiths can use either iron or cast iron as ingredients to produce their own steels. They control the carbon content
of the steel using their forge. We call this home-made steel "Oroshi-gane".

Purity of materials for making blades and tsuba

In the modern age there are numerous kinds of alloy steels. Other metals are added to the iron to produce special
properties for example stainless steel. We call these steels "alloy steels" to differentiate them from "pure carbon steels".
(Although this term is strange in exact meaning of the word, I will use it. Please see note at bottom.)
Even commercial Carbon steels have trace amounts of other metals, that is why we don't call them "pure" carbon steels.
Japanese swordsmiths never use these modern steels for blades or tsuba and a Japanese blade can not be made with
these metals.

TAMA-HAGANE is the main material used in making a Japanese blade. It is a primitive and pure steel made using a
traditional Japanese furnace, the TATARA.
The materials for OROSHI-GANE must also be pure of course.
The next step, fold welding, can remove slags and bubbles, but can't remove metal contamination.
Therefore the materials must be as pure a steel as possible.

A Japanese blade must be made from this "pure" steel. Pure steel, simply iron and carbon is a reflection of the beauty of
nature.
The value of the Japanese blade lies in its purity. (=> Material of Japanese blades)

Some other terms about iron/steel

pure iron = the most pure iron we can get by the top technology today. It can be one of the materials for oroshigane.
sponge iron = one form of pure iron. It looks like a sponge because it has many bubbles inside of it.
electrolytic iron = another kind of pure iron. It is made by electrolysis from iron salts.
TETSU = iron
HAGANE = carbon steel
ZUKU = cast iron
IMONO = cast iron ware
TAMA-HAGANE = a pure steel made by TATARA method.
OROSHI-GANE = a pure steel that is made by sword smith themselves.

Note;
I have received some advise from a Western smith who is knowledgeable in this field.
----------------------------
Iron
It is a general word used to describe metals that have pure iron as their main constituent. In metallurgy we call these
metals ferrous alloys.

Cast iron
(Carbon content over 1.5 % make iron alloys brittle.)
Not strictly true. 1.5 -2.5 % C is white cast and is extremely hard being FeC.
You need to get out to 3.2%C + to get into grey casts iron which aren't hard

Purity of Tamahagane
(In the modern age there are numerous kinds of alloy steels.)
These are steels in the exact meaning of the word. Carbon steels are just the most basic type.

(Pure carbon steel)

I've tried to reflect your ideas on the 'purity' of tamahagane although technically I have problems with this word. All
ferrous alloys are 'Steel' in the western sense and are therefore alloys of iron and carbon. The normal usage here would
be 'simple' carbon steels but I don't think the connotation is what you want.

"Cast Iron has not suffered the
corruption in material and
technique that has changed
early to present-day wrought
iron."
WROUGHT IRON:
Originally, wrought iron was a specific
carbon content composition with specific
relative elasticity. When heated, it could be
skillfully hammered and stretched,
artistically twisted and bent into the desired
shapes by individual craftsman.
Today, what is commonly called wrought
iron is mild steel bars which are heated,
then "hammered" and bent into shapes
...frequently by machines...to mass produce
scrolls, twisted bars and the like, for
assembly into finished items.
Today's mass produced wrought iron has
limited application - especially in fine
restorative and reproduction work. As it is
commonly manufactured from stock half-
inch bars as well as light weight steel
channel, the dimensional characteristics of
many specific "period" architecural styles
can not be achieved.
And, with so much "bad iron" in the mass
production marketplace today, a question of
durability arrises in the use of mass-
produced wrought iron components.
The artistry and quality of custom-made
wrought iron is, fortunately, still available
today from the custom iron work specialists
at Architectural Iron Company.
CAST IRON:
Cast iron is, and has always been, a
particular composition of iron that is heated
to a liquid state and is poured into precision
molds carefully prepared for accurate
reproduction.
Since these molds can take virtually any
shape, restricted only by the talent of the
patternmaker, the range of cast iron
products and castings is practically
unlimited.
Cast iron gained great popularity in the
United States in the nineteenth century,
because of it's suitability to the lower-cost
mass production process...in a time when
wrought iron was still an individual hand
craft.
With the introduction of mass produced
wrought iron, the proliferation of cast iron
foundries declined.
Today, casting of iron for architectural work
has returned to being more of a custom
craft, available from the specialists at
Architectural Iron.
Architectural Iron Company manufactures
ornamental cast iron, as shown in the
catalogue of stock iteems... and also
produces specialized pieces for restorative
 work, where frequently only a single casting
of a pattern will be made.

It may help the layman to distinguish "wrought" from

"cast" iron by examining the work in question - looking
for squared, rounded or rectangular "bars" - the raw
material of wrought iron work. More detailed, decorative
or multidimensional shapes are generally "cast".
The balance of the ironwork is wrought. Note, in this close up of an Architectural iron 19th century reproduction, the
detail and classic beauty of the cast pieces. They were created with the original methods and materials of the period.