ABSTRACT
Metal manufacture includes the smelting of metals, their refining and their manufacture into such products as sheets, sections, rods and bars for the engineering industries. It includes a large proportion of heavy and special industries, and its location has always been determined largely by transport costs. Iron is smelted in blast furnaces by the use of heat and a reducing gas. Coke is used as a fuel and limestone as a flux. Iron manufacture is a heavy special industry, which tends to make a great deal of noise, smoke and dust, although modern plants are much quieter and cleaner than older ones. Enormous sites are needed not only for the works themselves, but for the slag heaps, and there should always be sufficient room for expansion. Apart from steel casting and forging, all steel is subjected to some form of rolling to change its form into such products as plates, sheets and tinplate, sections, bars or tubes.
