wrought iron

Introduction about wrought iron

1. WROUGHT IRON

2. The meaning of “wrought” is that metal which possesses sufficient ductility in order to permit hot and/or cold deformation. Wrought iron is the purest iron with a small amount of slag forged out into fibres. The typical composition indicates 99 percent of iron and traces of carbon, phosphorus, manganese, silicon, sulphur and slag. During the production process, first all elements in iron (may be C, S, Mn , Si and P) are eliminated leaving almost pure iron molten slag. In order to remove the excess slag, the final mix is then squeezed in a press and reduced to billets by rolling milling.

3. The resulting material would consist of pure iron separated by thin layers of slag material. The slag characteristic of wrought iron is beneficial in blacksmithy / forging operations and provides the material its peculiar fibrous structure. Further, the non-corrosive slag constituent makes wrought iron resistant to progressive corrosion and also helps in reducing effect of fatigue caused by shocks and vibrations. Wrought iron is tough, malleable and ductile and possesses ultimate tensile strength of 350 N/mm 2 .

4. Its melting point is 1530°C. It can neither be hardened nor tempered like steel. The billets of wrought iron can be reheated to form bars, plates, boiler tubing, forgings, crane hook, railway coupling, bolts and nuts, chains, barbed wire, coal handling equipment and cooling towers, etc.