4. Electric arc furnaces since 1950

Before the Second World War, the electric furnace was reserved for the production of special steels, due to the very slowness of the operation. Progress made during the war, in terms of unit size and power, enabled the electric furnace to rival the Martin furnace in the production of carbon steels from scrap by 1950, with the construction of 500,000 to 1,000,000 t/year steelworks, including 150 to 200 t units (Battelle Memorial Institute report 1953).

At the same time, smaller electric furnaces were being developed in American and then Italian mini-mills, and especially after the advent of continuous casting made it possible to abandon casting in small ingots, which was both expensive and prone to defects.

From the early 1960s until the beginning of the 21st century, a series of...