cast steel

cast steel

English

Noun

cast steel (countable and uncountable, plural cast steels)

1. (countable, uncountable) The steel making up a steel casting, in the sense of one cast to finished (net) or near-net shape: the product of a steel foundry (as opposed to a steel mill); the steel counterpart to cast iron.

   Coordinate terms: cast iron, cast aluminum, cast bronze, cast brass

2. (archaic, countable, uncountable) Steel that has been poured from (cast out of) a vessel (e.g., crucible, ladle, or furnace) while molten, as opposed to blister steel, which has been formed by carburizing and hammering iron bars.

   Coordinate term: blister steel

   • 1949, Graeff AD, ed.; History Committee of District No. 1 of the Steel Founders' Society of America, A History of Steel Casting, District No. 1 of the Steel Founders' Society of America, LCCN 49048933, pages 5–6:

     CAST STEEL / A search for metals of lighter, and more durable qualities than iron led to a new process in producing steel. In 1740 Benjamin Huntsman, a watchmaker, searching for a lighter, and less brittle metal than the old blister steel, hit upon melting steel in a crucible, or in a pot, lined with clay and graphite. The crucible could withstand the high temperatures necessary to melt metals in a container. To the product of the crucible was given the name "cast steel." [because it was poured (cast) from a melted state, unlike blister steel] / A DISTINCTION OF TERMS / Readers are cautioned at this point to understand that the terms "cast steel" and "steel castings" are not interchangeable, and, in fact, bear very little relationship to each other. It is true that steel castings must be made of "cast steel," but not all "cast steel" goes into the manufacture of steel castings. "Cast steel" merely describes the mass of metal which, after being melted, is poured into a mold of one sort or another, whether steel ingot molds or castings. Steel castings are objects which are given their final form in sand-filled molds. "Cast steel" may be poured into molds to form steel castings but it may also find its way, eventually, into structural steel, rolled steel or forgings; steel castings are the products of the steel foundry.

   • 1949, Graeff AD, ed.; History Committee of District No. 1 of the Steel Founders' Society of America, A History of Steel Casting, District No. 1 of the Steel Founders' Society of America, LCCN 49048933, pages 8–9:

     Several journals make a note of the fact that the William Butcher Steel Works supplied 3000 tons of cast steel for the building of the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis, and the content of the statements may lead readers to assume that these were steel castings. In the opinion of Mr. John N. Mudd, historian of the Midvale Steel Company, the materials furnished the bridge builders in St. Louis were cast steel and not steel castings.

Related terms

• casting
• continuous casting

References