9 Fun Facts On Steel That You Should Know

Steel is one of the most widely used metal alloys, and not surprisingly, the uses of steel are also hugely varied.
Here are 9 fun facts about this wonder alloy that you may not have known:

1. The world’s largest dental cap, made for Spike, an Asian elephant at the Calgary Zoo in Canada, is made of steel.
   The cap is 5 inches in diameter, 19 inches long, and weighs 12.7 kg.
2. In the 1950s, during nuclear testing in Los Alamos, scientists shot a steel manhole cover weighing 2 tonnes into the Earth’s atmosphere at a velocity of 41 miles/sec.
   The cover was never found!
3. The Eiffel Tower grows about 6 inches taller than its actual height in summer, due to an expansion of steel from the heat.
4. Recycling just 7 steel cans will help you save enough energy to power a 60-watt bulb for as long as 26 years.
5. There is actually a kind of soap bar made of stainless steel, which can be used to eliminate odour of onion and garlic from one’s hands.
   It can also help in removing the foul odour from smokers’ hands.
6. Two-thirds of all the cans you see on supermarket shelves are made of steel.
7. Steel does not lose any of its properties when it is recycled, which means it can be melted down and cast into new products an unlimited number of times.
8. Steel was used in mass manufacturing for the first time when scientists found out it could be used to manufacture railroad tracks.
9. Steel may have been around for a few hundred years, but about 75% of the widely used types of steel were developed in the last 20 years.