Resources · Glossary
Glossary of industrial terms.
Short, plain-English definitions of the words you'll meet on the floor and in our guides.
- ATEX
- EU directives for equipment used in potentially explosive atmospheres.
- BOD
- Biochemical oxygen demand — a water-quality test needing a cooled incubator.
- Cavitation
- Formation and collapse of micro-bubbles in liquid; the cleaning action in ultrasonic tanks.
- Cooling bed
- Area in a rolling mill where hot bars cool before cutting and bundling.
- CTL
- Cut-to-length — a line that uncoils, levels and cuts strip into sheets.
- ERW
- Electric resistance welding — the common process for welded steel tube and pipe.
- Fin-pass
- Tube-mill stands that centre and condition the seam before welding.
- Flower pattern
- The sequence of profiles a strip passes through as it is formed into a tube.
- Kerf
- Width of material removed by a saw cut.
- Mass finishing
- Batch deburring and polishing of parts with media in a vibratory machine.
- MC nylon
- Monomer-cast nylon (PA6) used for machined engineering-plastic parts.
- OCR
- Optical character recognition — reading printed or stamped marks by camera.
- Planetary gearbox
- Gearbox with planet gears around a sun gear; high torque in a compact size.
- Roll neck
- The journal at each end of a mill roll that runs in a bearing.
- Shot-peening
- Blasting with round media to add compressive stress and improve fatigue life.
- Slew drive
- Gearbox and slewing bearing combined to rotate heavy loads.
- Swarf
- Chips and turnings produced by machining.
- TMT
- Thermo-mechanically treated — high-strength reinforcing bar (rebar).
- Tramp oil
- Hydraulic and way oil that leaks into machine coolant.
- ULT freezer
- Ultra-low temperature freezer for sensitive biological samples.
Next step