Samsung RF22R7351SR American Fridge Freezer – Stainless Steel – A+ Rated

A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is a (pronounced AY), plural aes.

It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version is often written in one of two forms: the double-storey |a| and single-storey |ɑ|. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type.

In English, a is the indefinite article, with the alternative form an.

American(s) may refer to:

• American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
  • Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
  • American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American"
  • American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States
  • Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States
• American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America"
  • Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts

Samsung Group (Korean: 삼성; Hanja: 三星; RR: samseong [samsʌŋ]; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Digital City, Suwon, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol (business conglomerate). As of 2024, Samsung has the world's fifth-highest brand value.

Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as a trading company. Over the next three decades, the group diversified into areas including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities, and retail. Samsung entered the electronics industry in the late 1960s and the construction and shipbuilding industries in the mid-1970s; these areas would drive its subsequent growth. Following Lee's death in 1987, Samsung was separated into five business groups – Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group, Hansol Group, and JoongAng Group.

Samsung industrial affiliates include Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T Corporation. Other subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance and Cheil Worldwide. Notable Samsung industrial affiliates include Samsung Electronics (the world's largest information technology company, consumer electronics maker and chipmaker measured by 2017 revenues), Samsung Heavy Industries (the world's second largest shipbuilder measured by 2010 revenues), and Samsung Engineering and Samsung C&T Corporation (respectively the world's 13th and 36th largest construction companies). Other notable subsidiaries include Samsung Life Insurance (the world's 14th largest life insurance company), Samsung Everland (operator of Everland Resort, the oldest theme park in South Korea) and Cheil Worldwide (the world's 15th largest advertising agency, as measured by 2012 revenues).

Stainless may refer to:

• Cleanliness, or the quality of being clean
• Stainless steel, a corrosion-resistant metal alloy
• Stainless Games, a British video game developer
• Stainless Broadcasting Company, a TV broadcaster based in Michigan, US
• Stainless Banner, the second national flag of the Confederate States of America

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon with improved strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Because of its high tensile strength and low cost, steel is one of the most commonly manufactured materials in the world. Steel is used in buildings, as concrete reinforcing rods, in bridges, infrastructure, tools, ships, trains, cars, bicycles, machines, electrical appliances, furniture, and weapons.

Iron is always the main element in steel, but many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels, which are resistant to corrosion and oxidation, typically need an additional 11% chromium.

Iron is the base metal of steel. Depending on the temperature, it can take two crystalline forms (allotropic forms): body-centred cubic and face-centred cubic. The interaction of the allotropes of iron with the alloying elements, primarily carbon, gives steel and cast iron their range of unique properties. In pure iron, the crystal structure has relatively little resistance to the iron atoms slipping past one another, and so pure iron is quite ductile, or soft and easily formed. In steel, small amounts of carbon, other elements, and inclusions within the iron act as hardening agents that prevent the movement of dislocations.

The carbon in typical steel alloys may contribute up to 2.14% of its weight. Varying the amount of carbon and many other alloying elements, as well as controlling their chemical and physical makeup in the final steel (either as solute elements, or as precipitated phases), impedes the movement of the dislocations that make pure iron ductile, and thus controls and enhances its qualities. These qualities include the hardness, quenching behaviour, need for annealing, tempering behaviour, yield strength, and tensile strength of the resulting steel. The increase in steel's strength compared to pure iron is possible only by reducing iron's ductility.

Steel was produced in bloomery furnaces for thousands of years, but its large-scale, industrial use began only after more efficient production methods were devised in the 17th century, with the introduction of the blast furnace and production of crucible steel. This was followed by the Bessemer process in England in the mid-19th century, and then by the open-hearth furnace. With the invention of the Bessemer process, a new era of mass-produced steel began. Mild steel replaced wrought iron. The German states were the major steel producers in Europe in the 19th century. American steel production was centred in Pittsburgh, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Cleveland until the late 20th century. Currently, world steel production is centered in China, which produced 54% of the world's steel in 2023.

Further refinements in the process, such as basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS), largely replaced earlier methods by further lowering the cost of production and increasing the quality of the final product. Today more than 1.6 billion tons of steel is produced annually. Modern steel is generally identified by various grades defined by assorted standards organizations. The modern steel industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the world, but also one of the most energy and greenhouse gas emission intense industries, contributing 8% of global emissions. However, steel is also very reusable: it is one of the world's most-recycled materials, with a recycling rate of over 60% globally.