Tensile strength, cokes

Blast furnace production of iron allows the hot, newly reduced product to trickle through the bed of heated coke to the hearth. Since carbon is somewhat soluble in molten iron, pig iron usually contains from 3 to 4.5% carbon. It also contains smaller percentages of other reduced elements such as silicon, phosphorus, manganese, etc., generated by the same reducing processes that yielded the iron (Table 14.3). Primarily from the effect of the high-carbon content on the iron crystal structure, the blast furnace product is brittle, hard, and possesses relatively low-tensile strength. Hence the crude pig iron product of the blast furnace is not much used in this form. 

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