Scrap Calculations

How to Calculate Melt Loss, Recovered Yield, and Throughput in Scrap Processing

Work through the core scrap-processing formulas with real units and numbers: melt loss, recovered yield, throughput, and freight burden per ton.

Recovered material yield is the first number to nail. Yield equals net saleable weight divided by gross received weight. Take a 42,000 lb load of shredded auto scrap. Deduct 6 percent contamination (2,520 lb of dirt, glass, plastic) and 1.5 percent moisture (630 lb) and you sell 38,850 lb. Yield is 38,850 / 42,000 = 0.925, or 92.5 percent. The Recovered Material Yield calculator does this per grade. Where do inputs come from? Gross from the Truck Scale ticket, deductions from a hand-sort assay on a 200 to 500 lb representative sample scaled up.

Melt loss is separate from yield and applies once material hits a furnace. Melt loss equals (charge weight minus tapped weight) divided by charge weight. Charge 20,000 lb of clean busheling, tap 19,100 lb of liquid steel, and loss is 900 / 20,000 = 4.5 percent. Clean prime scrap runs 2 to 4 percent; oily or light gauge turnings can hit 8 to 12 percent from oxidation and slag entrainment. Feed the Melt Loss Estimate calculator your charge weight and an oxidation factor by grade to forecast liquid metal before you commit a heat.

Shear and baler throughput is a rate, not a ratio. Throughput equals processed tons divided by operating hours. A guillotine shear cycling every 22 seconds at 1,100 lb per stroke yields 3,600 / 22 times 1,100 = 180,000 lb per hour, or 90 tons per hour at 100 percent uptime. Apply a realistic 68 percent utilization (crane feed gaps, jams, changeovers) and you book 61 effective tons per hour. The Shear/baler Throughput calculator lets you enter cycle time, stroke weight, and utilization so the effective rate, not the nameplate rate, drives your schedule.

Scrap freight burden converts a haul cost into dollars per ton so it can be netted against price. Burden equals total freight charge divided by net tons hauled. A 400 mile move at 4.10 dollars per loaded mile is 1,640 dollars. On a 22 net ton load that is 74.55 dollars per ton. On a light 16 ton load of shredded tin the same truck costs 102.50 dollars per ton, a 27.95 dollar swing driven purely by density. The Scrap Freight Burden calculator ties rate, distance, and payload together so you quote on delivered economics, not the raw mill price.

Contamination deductions need to be computed in weight and in penalty dollars, and they are different. If a mill assays 3 percent excess non-metallics above the 2 percent spec on a 20 ton load, the weight deduction is 0.03 times 40,000 = 1,200 lb removed from payable tonnage. A separate quality penalty of 12 dollars per ton on the full 20 tons adds 240 dollars. The Contamination Penalty calculator keeps the tonnage haircut and the price penalty as two lines so you can see which grades are quietly eroding your net.

Torch cutting cost per ton hinges on gas consumption and cut length. Oxy-fuel cutting 1 inch plate consumes roughly 55 cubic feet of oxygen and 6 cubic feet of acetylene per linear foot at 18 inches per minute. To size 4 tons of structural into furnace lengths might need 320 linear feet, so 17,600 cubic feet of oxygen. At 0.028 dollars per cubic foot that is 493 dollars in oxygen alone, or 123 dollars per ton before labor. The Torch Cutting Cost calculator combines gas rate, cut length, tip size, and labor into a per-ton figure.

Yard inventory turns tell you how fast material moves through, computed as annual tons shipped divided by average tons on the ground. Ship 84,000 tons a year against an average standing inventory of 7,000 tons and you turn 12 times, roughly monthly. Slow grades like cast iron might sit at 4 turns while shredded ships at 20. The Yard Inventory Turns calculator uses shipped volume and a rolling average inventory pulled from your scale and pile surveys, so you can spot capital trapped in stagnant piles.

Chain these together to get delivered net per ton. Start with mill price, subtract the melt-related quality penalty, apply the recovered yield to convert gross to payable, subtract freight burden, then subtract your processing cost stack (labor, torch, shear). A load quoted at 340 dollars per gross ton with 92.5 percent yield, 74.55 dollars freight burden, and 41 dollars combined processing nets 340 times 0.925 minus 74.55 minus 41 = 199.95 dollars per ton. Run each block in its own calculator, then stack the outputs so no single estimate hides a bad assumption.

Published 2026-07-01.