RE:RE:Vanadium in Steel and fall in iron ore, steel and coal price StoogeNo4...Thank you for the Vanadium info.
I feel that since Vanadium has increased the allowable working stresses of structural steels, it likely decreased the tonnages of structural steel required.
Since the US was most likely the major user of vanadium in structural grade steel after developing ASTM A992 steel – the structural steel producers should make a chart beginning a few years before the advent of ASTM A992 showing structural steel usage for each year onward through and after the major earthquakes and the infrastructure boom to the present. Such would help give a clearer picture of what is happening to the tonnages used.
The chart can be checked against the average vanadium percentages used each year – on the global basis - and include the influence of earthquakes along with the influence of China's Infrastructure Boom to the present.
Such may find structural steel's global demand hasn't gone down as the press reports indicate.
Then as you earlier indicated – on another board - such structural grade steels used in vehicles and aircraft construction would also be of importance.