Results of the Application of the Mdn in the Improvement of the Design of an Electrical Furnace that produces Low Carbon Ferromanganese

World-wide steel production is currently about 1 350 million tons per year (more specific, in the 2007 the production has been the 1 343 million tons). The 45% of total production is low carbon steels (ferritic steels), products (C� 0.10%) while 25%, 10% and 20% of the rest, respectively, can be attributed to ferritic‐pearlitic steels (C� 0.25%), pearlitic steels (C� 0.80%) and special products (stainless and high alloy). Manganese has always been one of the common elements in the chemical specifications, both for carbon steels as well as for special steels. Nevertheless, and due to the importance of high resistance and high toughness ferritic products, its role as an alloy element has become highly valued in recent years. The presence of manganese in ferritic steel simultaneously favors resistance (s y yield strength) as well as toughness (ITT °C, Impact Transition Temperature) of the products, a circumstance that is quite uncommon both in alloy elements of either a substitutional or intersticial solid solution character. In the new generations of IF (Interstitial Free) steels it can be said that the role of carbon and of interstitial elements (nitrogen, hydrogen and boron) have been relegated to the category of impurity. The presence of the mentioned elements, however, remarkably diminishes the toughness of the product. For this reason one tends to value the contents