Steel was known in antiquity, and may have been produced by managing the bloomery so that the bloom contained carbon.^[9] Some of the first steel comes from East Africa, dating back to 1400 BCE.^[10] In the 4th century BCE steel weapons like the Falcata were produced in the Iberian peninsula. The Chinese of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) created steel by melting together wrought iron with cast iron, gaining ultimate product of a carbon intermediate—steel—by the 1st century CE.^[11][12] Along with their original methods of forging steel, the Chinese had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel, an idea imported from India to China by the 5th century CE.^[13] Wootz steel was produced in India and Sri Lanka from around 300 BCE. This early steel-making method employed the use of a wind furnace, blown by the monsoon winds.^[14] Also known as Damascus steel, wootz is famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge. It was originally created from a number of different materials including various trace elements. It was essentially a complicated alloy with iron as its main component. Recent studies have suggested that carbon nanotubes were included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though given the technology available at that time, they were probably produced more by chance than by design.^[15] Crucible steel was produced in Merv by 9th to 10th century CE.

In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, inhomogeneous steel and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that utilized partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast.[16]

Types of Steel

Plain-carbon steel (up to 2.1% carbon)
Stainless steel (alloy with chromium)
HSLA steel (high strength low alloy)
Tool steel (very hard; heat-treated)

Bloomery smelting during the Middle Ages.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Steel India has been reputed for its iron and steel since Greek and Roman times with the earliest reported finds of high-carbon steels in the world coming from the early Christian era, while Greek accounts report the manufacture of steel in India by the crucible process. Wootz is the anglicized version of ukku in the languages of the states of Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, a term denoting steel. Literary accounts suggest that steel from the southern part of the Indian subcontinent was exported to Europe, China, the Arab world and the Middle East. In the 12th century the Arab Idrisi says ‘The Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron. It is impossible to find anything to surpass the edge from Indian steel’.

Studies on Wootz indicate that it was an ultra-high carbon steel with between 1-2% carbon and was believed to have been used to fashion Damascus blades with a watered steel pattern (Srinivasan and Griffiths 1997). Experimental reconstructions by Wadsworth and Sherby in the 1980’s have demonstrated that ultra-high carbon steels with about 1.5% C can be used to simulate ‘Damascus’ blades and that these exhibit fascinating superplastic properties. Superplasticity is a remarkable phenomenon which allows a material to change its external shape to a very great extent without changing within.

A description from the Crusades of the Damascus blades is as follows: ‘One blow of a Damascus sword would cleave a European helmet without turning the edge or cut through a silk handkerchief drawn across it’. One sixth century writer describes blades as having a water pattern whose ‘wavy streaks are glistening-it is like a pond on whose surface the wind is gliding’.

Wootz steel also played an important role in the development of metallurgy. Michael Faraday, the greatest experimenter of all times, tried to duplicate the steel by alloying iron with a variety of metallic additions including noble metals but failed. As he was the son of a blacksmith the extraordinary properties of Wootz steel must have fascinated him. His failure had an unexpected and fortunate outcome as it marked the beginning of alloy steel making. Wootz has been a prime motivating force in the development of metallurgical science and the study of micro-structures. Although iron and steel had been used for thousands of years the role of carbon in steel as the dominant element was found only in 1774 by Tobern Bergman and was due to the efforts of Europeans to unravel the mysteries of Wootz. Similarly the textured Damascus steel was one of the earliest materials to be examined by the microscope. British, French and Russian metallography developed largely due to the quest to document this structure. Wootz was an ‘advanced material’ of the ancient world used in three continents for well over a millennium. Neither its geographic sway nor its historic dominance is likely to be equalled by advanced materials of our era.

See also, Damascus Steel

Alloy

A general name given to iron-carbon alloys having smaller amounts of carbon than cast iron. Strictly speaking most modern iron coins are made of steel. Steel rusts very readily so it needs a coating when used for coins.

Nickel and copper clad steel coins were in use in Bolivia from 1965 to 1987, when hyper-inflation led to a new series of stainless steel coins.

Zinc coated steel was used for 2 Franc coins during the Allied Occupation of Belgium in 1944. They were made from the same blanks as the zinc coated steel US 1 cent piece of 1943.

The 'bronze' coinage of the UK has been copper-clad steel since 1992, with a couple of minor exceptions.

Source: http://www.tclayton.demon.co.uk/metal.html