TRENDS IN THE STEEL INDUSTRY AND DEVELOPMENTS OF NEW REFRACTORY MATERIALS

At first, trends in the steel industry are briefly reviewed, taking into consideration bothmanagerial and technical issues. As a consequence of this review, the importance of electricfurnace technology and of secondary metallurgy is being underlined. The same sequence iffollowed to describe the refractory industry. Specific issues concerning the latest developments oncarbon-containing castables, in steelmaking ladles, are described, as an illustration of what mayoccur.