The Energy Involved in Producing Engineering Materials

Abstract

Energy is needed to convert minerals into the basic materials which are used in the engineering industry and then to form them into end products. It is in the conversion that most of the energy is normally consumed, and increases in the costs of energy influence the relative costs of these materials. The energy needed to form the materials into the various end products is normally small in comparison and, even from an energy conservation point of view, it is more important to employ forming methods which use the minimum amount of material than to choose methods which inherently use less energy. The ability to recycle with low energy consumption the material which is discarded during the forming or shaping process is important and improved recycling could have considerable impact upon the overall energy consumption. Whereas the overall energy consumption is important, it is the cost of the raw materials themselves and the total cost of the process to the finished product (offset by any return on waste products) which determines the relative cost of each of the various engineering materials. The united Kingdom energy situation and its effect on the relative positions of these materials is discussed.