Wad
A thin web of metal which is punched out to produce a hole through the forging.

Walking Beam Furnace
A type of continuous reheat furnace in which the billet or slab is moved through distinct heating zones within the furnace by repeatedly lifting and setting it down at a more forward point in the furnace; this is in contrast to a batch reheat furnace or a pusher-type reheat furnace. By controlling the speed through the zones, steel-makers can achieve precise rolling temperatures and consume less fuel during operation.

Wap
The single turn in a coil.

Wash Heating (Sweating)
The soaking of an ingot or part cogged ingot (after limited rolling) at high temperature under oxidizing conditions so that surface melts and runs off as fluid slag. Surface defects of an ingot or partly cogged ingot may be removed in this way.

Water Based (Aqueous)
A coating in which the film forming ingredients are dissolved in or suspended in a volatile system containing water as the major solvent.

Wavy Edges
A term used to describe a quality defect in which the edge of the strip is wavy.

Wear
Damage to a solid surface, generally involving progressive loss of material, due to relative motion between that surface and a connecting surface or substance.

Wedge Section (Wedge Shape)
A strip with gradual change in thickness along the width.

Weigh-Strip-Weigh
A coating weight test.

Wet Drawn Wire
A wire passing through liquid lubricants. This imparts a bright surface to the wire.

White Pickling
The second pickling, after annealing of sheets intended for tinplate.

White Rust
A coating metal oxide, such as zinc oxide, which develops when the oxygen in the atmosphere mixes with the coating material (such as galvanized coating).

Wide-Flange Beam
A structural steel section on which the flanges are not tapered, but have equal thickness from the tip to the web and are at right angles to the web. Wide-flange beams are differentiated by the width of the web, which can range from 3 inches to more than 40 inches, and by the weight of the beam, measured in pounds per foot.

Widths
The lateral dimension of rolled steel, as opposed to the length or the gauge (thickness). If width of the steel strip is not controlled during rolling, the edges must be trimmed.

Wiped Galvanised Wire
Wire which has been hot dip galvanised and drawn through suitable wipers while the zinc is in the molten state. The term is also applied to electro-galvanised wire of uniform coating.

Wire
A finished product, round, half round, square, hexagonal, flat or of any other section including grooved section characterised by the fact that it has been subjected to a sizing operation at ambient temperature by the process of drawing through a die or by other mechanical means. Wire is generally supplied in coil form but in exceptional cases can be supplied in straight lengths. It shall be within following dimensions :

Wortle
A hard plate for wire drawing containing series of straight lines.

Wrap
The single turn in a coil.

Wrinkling
1. A coating defect consisting of the formation of small ridges or folds in the coating which resemble the surface of a prune, but are usually smaller in size.
2. A wavy condition obtained in drawing in the area of the metal that passes over the draw radius. Wrinkling may also occur in other forming operations when unbalanced compressive forces are set-up.

Wrought Iron
A very low carbon iron containing varying amounts of mechanically included slag. The chief characteristic of wrought iron is that the temperatures employed in its production are so low that it gets liquified beyond pasty or semi-fused state.