Furnace, Basic Oxygen

One of two major facilities (the other being an electric arc furnace) used to produce liquid steel. A jet of high-velocity oxygen impinges on the metal and reacts with carbon and other impurities to form liquid steel. The product is tapped into a ladle and may be ladle-refined. It is subsequently strand cast directly into blooms or billets, or teemed into ingots for further working. The design is known as the Linz-Donawitz Process (see entry).