6/17/2023 0 Comments Annual iron wars![]() ![]() Britain 19th century īritain led the world's Industrial Revolution with its early commitment to coal mining, steam power, textile mills, machinery, railways, and shipbuilding. By 1900 the electric arc furnace was adapted to steelmaking and by the 1920s, the falling cost of electricity allowed it to largely supplant the crucible process for specialty steels. The crucible process remained important for making high-quality alloy steel into the 20th century. Its process allowed closer control over the composition of the steel also, a substantial quantity of scrap could be included in the charge. The usual open-hearth process used pig iron, ore, and scrap, and became known as the Siemens-Martin process. The open-hearth process originated in the 1860s in Germany and France. Īfter 1890 the Bessemer process was gradually supplanted by open-hearth steelmaking and by the middle of the 20th century was no longer in use. Experience quickly proved steel had much greater strength and durability and could handle the increasingly heavy and faster engines and cars. The solution was to turn to steel rails, which the Bessemer process made competitive in price. By the 1850s, the speed, weight, and quantity of railway traffic was limited by the strength of the wrought iron rails in use. By 1870 Bessemer steel was widely used for ship plate. ![]() Henry Bessemer demonstrated the process in 1856 and had a successful operation going by 1864. The air blast burned the carbon and silicon out of the pig iron, releasing heat and causing the temperature of the molten metal to rise. In the Bessemer process, molten pig iron is converted to steel by blowing air through it after it was removed from the furnace. ![]() The introduction of cheap steel was due to the Bessemer and the open hearth processes, two technological advances made in England. Steelmaking was centered in Sheffield and Middlesbrough, Britain, which supplied the European and American markets. When the process of steel-making is started with pig iron, instead of wrought iron, the challenge is to remove a sufficient amount of carbon to reduce it to the 0.2 to 2 percentage for steel.īefore about 1860, steel was an expensive product, made in small quantities and used mostly for swords, tools and cutlery all large metal structures were made of wrought or cast iron. A blast furnace produces pig iron - an alloy of approximately 90 percent iron and 10 percent carbon. The introduction of the blast furnace reversed the problem. From prehistory through the creation of the blast furnace, iron was produced from iron ore as wrought iron, 99.82–100 percent Fe, and the process of making steel involved adding carbon to iron, usually in a serendipitous manner, in the forge, or via the cementation process. Steel is an alloy composed of between 0.2 and 2.0 percent carbon, with the balance being iron. Previously, steel was very expensive to produce, and was only used in small, expensive items, such as knives, swords and armor. This article is intended only to address the business, economic and social dimensions of the industry, since the bulk production of steel began as a result of Henry Bessemer's development of the Bessemer converter, in 1857. Since then, steel has become a staple of the world's industrial economy. The history of the modern steel industry began in the late 1850s. After 1950, the iron and steel industry began to be located on large areas of flat land near sea ports. For recent history, see History of the steel industry (1970–present).īefore 1800 A.D., the iron and steel industry was located where raw material, power supply and running water were easily available. For the history of earlier processes, see History of ferrous metallurgy. ![]()
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