A steel mill is one of the closest approximations of HellOnEarth, if [[DivineComedy Dante's Inferno]] is used as a yardstick. Since metal work requires extremely high temperatures, a steel mill is a [[BigLabyrinthineBuilding humongous maze]] of [[EternalEngine eerie machinery]], [[HellFire fiery furnaces]], extreme temperatures, [[LavaPit molten metal]], poisonous gasses, foul smells and, most of all, [[NoOSHACompliance heavy objects]] [[AccordionMan falling from height when least expected]].

The steel mill can be either an integrated mill which produces steel from iron ore, or a mini-mill which produces steel from scrap. The nucleus of the former is the smelting works, which consists of ironworks (a blast furnace, which makes pig iron from iron ore, coke and limestone) and steelworks (either a converter or open hearth furnace, which makes steel from pig iron and scrap), and rolling mill, which prepares the steel products. The latter has typically an electric arc furnace for smelting the scrap and rolling mill for producing the steel products, such as sheet metal, slabs, girders and pipes. Usually the integrated steel mill also has cokeworks for making metallurgical coke from coal, and a chemical plant for further refining the coal tar into various chemicals. The by-product of blast furnace, slag, can be used on making roads, bricks and cement.

At best, a SteelMill may be a BigLabyrinthineBuilding - the Severstal mill at Magnitogorsk, Russia, spreads ''twelve kilometers'' along the river Ural bank. RealLife steel mills are usually hangar-like, with large open spaces inside, [[CaptainObvious due to the need to move around heavy equipment]]. At worst, it is a true NightmarishFactory. Its DangerousWorkplace nature is often displayed by a large [[XDaysSince X Days Since Last Accident]] billboard.

There are even enormous hydraulic anvils, in case the metaphor is just not {{anvilicious}} enough all on its own.

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!!Examples

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[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/TheDeerHunter'', where the characters work as steelworkers. The picture was shot in a real steel mill at Mingo Junction, Ohio.
* The climax of ''Franchise/{{Terminator}} 2: Judgment Day'' takes place in one, of course.
* The droid factory in ''StarWars Episode II'' is the scene of a brutal battle between the heroes and their Geonosian adversaries.
* Saruman runs one at Isengard in ''LordOfTheRings''.
* In ''{{Rudy}}'', the local steel mill is where Rudy's father and brothers work, where he is expected to work, and where his best friend dies in an accident, generously providing the catalyst for Rudy to decide he'd rather be elsewhere.
* The climactic fight scene from DrunkenMaster II takes place in a steel foundry.
* Po has a pivotal encounter with Shen at Shen's foundry in KungFuPanda2

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[[folder: Literature ]]

* ''Ganz Unten'' ("Lowest of the Low") by Günther Wallraff. He describes of the [[NoOSHACompliance working conditions]] of Turkish immigrant workers in the [[NightmarishFactory post-WWII German steel industry]]. Reading about [[spoiler:one of the workers stumbling at work and falling in the blast furnace]] is creepy.
* Jurgis worked in one in Upton Sinclair's ''Literature/TheJungle''. He described working in one far more favourably than working in Chicago [[NightmarishFactory meatpacking industry]].
* The description given of Hank Rearden's mill in the second chapter of ''AtlasShrugged''. However, the incredible heat, heavy weights soaring overhead, and so forth are portrayed positively as symbolizing man's creative power and conquest of physical nature. Although a furnace leak later in the book does portray the extreme danger that are inherent in the processes of steel production very well.

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[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

* In the third season premiere ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' gets sent to a hell-factory that has all of these standard tropes, along with YearInsideHourOutside.
* The Cybermen set up one of these in Victorian London in the [[Series/DoctorWho Tenth Doctor]] episode "The Next Doctor".
* The sports-movie parody sketch from ''ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'' carries the bad research jokes beyond [[GretzkyHasTheBall sports]] by having the characters work in a steel ''mine'', combining the two standard "got to get out of this dead-end town" industries of plucky underdog movies.
* Mentioned in the backstory of a little-remembered BBC serial called ''A Very British Coup'': the newly-elected Prime Minister's father was employed in one, but one day something went wrong and, as the PM puts it: "He were ''[[DeadlyEuphemism splashed.]]'' [[NightmareFuel By 'ot steel."]] The company's owners escaped punishment in a wrongful death lawsuit by claiming it was a result of the man's own negligence, a fact about which the Prime Minister is ''very bitter indeed.''
* ''Series/SesameStreet'' has used [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNInmrPmug8 this clip]] of a steel I-Beam being forged when an episode is [[BroughtToYouByTheLetterS Brought To You By The Letter "I"]]. It's memorablly scary for many when they first saw it as a child.

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[[folder: Music ]]

* Music/BillyJoel tried for this in his "Allentown" video, but it just came off kind of HoYay.
* Music/BruceSpringsteen in his "Youngstown". The "sweet Jenny" which he refers in that song is not a girl, but the Youngstown Steel and Tube Co. blast furnace named "Jeannette".
* The folk song ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT3A-MazRqY The Dalesman's Litany]]'' is about the rural population of Yorkshire in the 19th century being forced to work in the rising industrial cities. The steel mills are not described in positive terms.
-->I've walked at night through Sheffield lanes, 'twas just as being in hell
-->Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire and roared like the wind on the fell

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[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* There are ''entire planets'' turned into steel mills in TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}. With NoOSHACompliance, of course.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' add-on "The Pitt" gives up what may be the world's last functional steel mill, staffed by slaves in loincloths and sadistic criminals as their foreman. The leader, Ashur, hopes to use the industry provided by the mill to build a self-sufficient empire.
* VideoGame/MaxPayne blasts through one of these in the third act of his first game. Apart from the other dangerous elements of the Cold Steel Foundry, he also has to deal with hired mercenaries and laser tripmines because it's a front for production of Valkyr [[spoiler:as well as having a military bunker underneath the plant.]]
* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' Batman goes inside Sionis steel mill, the first time through a chimney which there's a pool of molten metal below and second time trough the cooling tunnels with rivers of liquid nitrogen, the factory also serves as Joker's main hideout.
* In VideoGame/AnarchyReigns, at Black Side campaign, Jack fights Big Bull in a foundry. Molten metal acts as a environmental hazard.

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Homer, worried about Bart's manliness after interactions with a gay shop-keeper, takes him to one of these mills to show him examples of masculinity. It backfired big time as it quickly [[CrowningMomentOfFunny converts into a gay disco.]]

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