Bessemer process

Bessemer process, the first method discovered for mass-producing steel. Though named after Sir
Henry Bessemer of England, the process evolved from the contributions of many investigators
before it could be used on a broad commercial basis. It was apparently conceived independently
and almost concurrently by Bessemer and by William Kelly of the United States. As early as
1847, Kelly, a businessman-scientist of Pittsburgh, Pa., began experiments aimed at developing a
revolutionary means of removing impurities from pig iron by an air blast; Kelly theorized that
not only would the air, injected into the molten iron, supply oxygen to react with the impurities,
converting them into oxides separable as slag, but that the heat evolved in these reactions would
increase the temperature of the mass, keeping it from solidifying during the operation. After
several failures, he succeeded in proving his theory and rapidly producing steel ingots.

Bessemer furnace, Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield, England.

Wikityke

In 1856 Bessemer, working independently in Sheffield, developed and patented the same
process. Whereas Kelly had been unable to perfect the process owing to a lack of financial
resources, Bessemer was able to develop it into a commercial success. Another
Englishman, Robert Forester Mushet, found that adding an alloy of carbon, manganese, and iron
after the air-blowing was complete restored the carbon content of the steel while neutralizing the
 effect of remaining impurities, notably sulfur. A Swedish ironmaster, Goran Goransson,
redesigned the Bessemer furnace, or converter, making it reliable in performance. The end result
was a means of mass-producing steel. The resultant volume of low-cost steel in Britain and the
United States soon revolutionized building construction and provided steel to replace iron in
railroad rails and many other uses.
The Bessemer converter is a cylindrical steel pot approximately 6 m (20 feet) high, originally
lined with a siliceous refractory. Air is blown in through openings (tuyeres) near the bottom,
creating oxides ofsilicon and manganese, which become part of the slag, and of carbon, which
are carried out in the stream of air. Within a few minutes an ingot of steel can be produced, ready
for the forge or rolling mill.
SIMILAR TOPICS
open-hearth process
crucible process
wootz (steel)
tool steel
The original Bessemer converter was not effective in removing the phosphorus present in sizable
amounts in most British and European iron ore. The invention in England, by Sidney Gilchrist
Thomas, of what is now called the Thomas-Gilchrist converter, which was lined with a basic
material such as burned limestone rather than an (acid) siliceous material, overcame this
problem. Another drawback to Bessemer steel, its retention of a small percentage
of nitrogen from the air blow, was not corrected until the 1950s. The open-hearth process, which
was developed in the 1860s, did not suffer from this difficulty, and it eventually outstripped the
Bessemer process to become the dominant steelmaking process until the mid-20th century. The
open-hearth process was in turn replaced by the basic oxygen process, which is actually an
extension and refinement of the Bessemer process

https://www.google.co.id/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwijro_10c3SAhX
KNpQKHbwHBWgQFggxMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffanyv88.com%3A443%2Fhttps%2Fwww.britannica.com%2Ftechnology
%2FBessemer-process&usg=AFQjCNG9g-gNIf-6nbrJOmlNd2riO7ncIg
https://www.google.co.id/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwijro_10c3SAhX
KNpQKHbwHBWgQFghVMAc&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.wirralmodelengineeringsociety.co.uk%2FArticles
%2FThe_Bessemer_Process.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFyKAFszGqwFQUR8a5b8Hg17QDHXQ

A Brief History of Iron and Steel Production

by
Professor Joseph S. Spoerl
Saint Anselm College

The production of iron by humans began probably sometime after 2000 BCE in south-
west or south-central Asia, perhaps in the Caucasus region. Thus began the Iron Age, when iron
replaced bronze in implements and weapons. This shift occurred because iron, when alloyed with
a bit of carbon, is harder, more durable, and holds a sharper edge than bronze. For over three
thousand years, until replaced by steel after CE 1870, iron formed the material basis of human
civilization in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Iron is the fourth most abundant element and makes up more than five percent of the
earths crust. Iron exists naturally in iron ore (sometimes called ironstone). Since iron has a
strong affinity for oxygen, iron ore is an oxide of iron; it also contains varying quantities of other
elements such as silicon, sulfur, manganese, and phosphorus. Smelting is the process by which
iron is extracted from iron ore. When iron ore is heated in a charcoal fire, the iron ore begins to
release some of its oxygen, which combines with carbon monoxide to form carbon dioxide. In
this way, a spongy, porous mass of relatively pure iron is formed, intermixed with bits of
charcoal and extraneous matter liberated from the ore, known as slag. (The separation of slag
from the iron is facilitated by the addition of flux, that is, crushed seashells or limestone.) The
formation of this bloom of iron was as far as the primitive blacksmith got: he would remove this
pasty mass from the furnace and hammer it on an anvil to drive out the cinders and slag and to
compact the metallic particles. This was wrought iron(wrought means worked, that is,
hammered) and contained generally from .02 to .08 percent of carbon (absorbed from the
charcoal), just enough to make the metal both tough and malleable. Wrought iron was the most
commonly produced metal through most of the Iron Age.

At very high temperatures (rare except in a blast furnace -- see below), a radical change
takes place: the iron begins to absorb carbon rapidly, and the iron starts to melt, since the higher
carbon content lowers the melting point of the iron. The result is cast iron, which contains from
3 to 4.5 percent carbon. This high proportion of carbon makes cast iron hard and brittle; it is
liable to crack or shatter under a heavy blow, and it cannot be forged (that is, heated and shaped
by hammer blows) at any temperature. By the late Middle Ages, European ironmakers had
developed the blast furnace, a tall chimney-like structure in which combustion was intensified
by a blast of air pumped through alternating layers of charcoal, flux, and iron ore. (Medieval
ironworkers also learned to harness water wheels to power bellows to pump the air through blast
furnaces and to power massive forge hammers; after 1777, James Watts new steam engine was
also used for these purposes.) Molten cast iron would run directly from the base of the blast
furnace into a sand trough which fed a number of smaller lateral troughs; this configuration
resembled a sow suckling a litter of piglets, and cast iron produced in this way thus came to be
called pig iron. Iron could be cast directly into molds at the blast furnace base or remelted from
pig iron to make cast iron stoves, pots, pans, firebacks, cannon, cannonballs, or bells (to cast
means to pour into a mold, hence the name cast iron). Casting is also called founding and is
done in afoundry.

Ironmakers of the late Middle Ages also learned how to transform cast pig iron into the
more useful wrought iron by oxidizing excess carbon out of the pig iron in a charcoal furnace
called a finery. After 1784, pig iron was refined in a puddling furnace (developed by the
Englishman Henry Cort). The puddling furnace required the stirring of the molten metal, kept
separate from the charcoal fire, through an aperture by a highly skilled craftsman called
a puddler; this exposed the metal evenly to the heat and combustion gases in the furnace so that
the carbon could be oxidized out. As the carbon content decreases, the melting point rises,
causing semi-solid bits of iron to appear in the liquid mass. The puddler would gather these in a
single mass and work them under a forge hammer, and then the hot wrought iron would be run
through rollers (in rolling mills) to form flat iron sheets or rails; slitting mills cut wrought iron
sheets into narrow strips for making nails.

While blast furnaces produced cast iron with great efficiency, the process of refining cast
iron into wrought iron remained comparatively inefficient into the mid-1800s. Historian David
Landes writes: The puddling furnace remained the bottleneck of the industry. Only men of
remarkable strength and endurance could stand up to the heat for hours, turn and stir the thick
porridge of liquescent metal, and draw off the blobs of pasty wrought iron. The puddlers were
the aristocracy of the proletariat, proud, clannish, set apart by sweat and blood. Few of them
lived past forty. Numerous efforts were made to mechanize the puddling furnace in vain.
Machines could be made to stir the bath, but only the human eye and touch could separate out
the solidifying decarburized metal. The size of the furnace and productivity gains were limited
accordingly (The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. VI, Part I, 1966, p. 447).

Another important discovery in the 1700s (by the Englishman Abraham Darby) was
that coke (a contraction of coal-cake), or coal baked to remove impurities such as sulfur, could
be substituted for charcoal in smelting. This was an important advance since charcoal production
had led to severe deforestation across western Europe and Great Britain.

Steel has a carbon content ranging from .2 to 1.5 percent, enough carbon to make it
harder than wrought iron, but not so much as to make it as brittle as cast iron. Its hardness
combined with its flexibility and tensile strength make steel far more useful than either type of
iron: it is more durable and holds a sharp edge better than the softer wrought iron, but it resists
shock and tension better than the more brittle cast iron. However, until the mid 1800s, steel was
difficult to manufacture and expensive. Prior to the invention of the Bessemer converter
(described below), steel was made mainly by the so-called cementation process. Bars of
wrought iron would be packed in powdered charcoal, layer upon layer, in tightly covered stone
boxes and heated. After several days of heating, the wrought iron bars would absorb carbon; to
distribute the carbon more evenly, the metal would be broken up, rebundled with charcoal
powder, and reheated. The resulting blister steel would then be heated again and brought under
a forge hammer to give it a more consistent texture. In the 1740s, the English clockmaker
Benjamin Huntsman, searching for a higher-quality steel for making clock springs, discovered
that blister steel could be melted in clay crucibles and further refined by the addition of a special
flux that removed fine particles of slag that the cementation process could not remove. This was
called crucible steel; it was of a high quality, but expensive.

To sum up so far: wrought iron has a little carbon (.02 to .08 percent), just enough to
make it hard without losing its malleability. Cast iron, in contrast, has a lot of carbon (3 to 4.5
percent), which makes it hard but brittle and nonmalleable. In between these is steel, with .2 to
1.5 percent carbon, making it harder than wrought iron, yet malleable and flexible, unlike cast
iron. These properties make steel more useful than either wrought or cast iron, yet prior to 1856,
there was no easy way to control the carbon level in iron so as to manufacture steel cheaply and
efficiently. Yet the growth of railroads in the 1800s created a huge market for steel. The first
railroads ran on wrought iron rails which were too soft to be durable. On some busy stretches,
and on the outer edges of curves, the wrought iron rails had to be replaced every six to eight
weeks. Steel rails would be far more durable, yet the labor- and energy-intensive process of
cementation made steel prohibitively expensive for such large-scale uses.

The mass-production of cheap steel only became possible after the introduction
of the Bessemer process, named after its brilliant inventor, the British metallurgist Sir Henry
Bessemer (1813-1898). Bessemer reasoned that carbon in molten pig iron unites readily with
oxygen, so a strong blast of air through molten pig iron should convert the pig iron into steel by
reducing its carbon content. In 1856 Bessemer designed what he called a converter, a large,
pear-shaped receptacle with holes at the bottom to allow the injection of compressed air.
Bessemer filled it with molten pig iron, blew compressed air through the molten metal, and
found that the pig iron was indeed emptied of carbon and silicon in just a few minutes; moreover,
instead of freezing up from the blast of cold air, the metal became even hotter and so remained
molten. Subsequent experimentation by another British inventor, Robert Mushet, showed that
the air blast actually removed too much carbon and left too much oxygen behind in the molten
metal. This made necessary the addition of a compound of iron, carbon, and manganese
called spiegeleisen (or spiegel for short): the manganese removes the oxygen in the form of
manganese oxide, which passes into the slag, and the carbon remains behind, converting the
molten iron into steel. (Ferromanganese serves a similar purpose.) The blast of air through the
molten pig iron, followed by the addition of a small quantity of molten spiegel, thus converts the
whole large mass of molten pig iron into steel in just minutes, without the need for any additional
fuel (as contrasted with the days, and tons of extra fuel and labor, required for puddling and
cementation).

One shortcoming of the initial Bessemer process, however, was that it did not remove
phosphorus from the pig iron. Phosphorus makes steel excessively brittle. Initially, therefore,
the Bessemer process could only be used on pig iron made from phosphorus-free ores. Such ores
are relatively scarce and expensive, as they are found in only a few places (e.g. Wales and
Sweden, where Bessemer got his iron ore, and upper Michigan). In 1876, the Welshman Sidney
Gilchrist Thomas discovered that adding a chemically basic material such as limestone to the
converter draws the phosphorus from the pig iron into the slag, which floats to the top of the
converter where it can be skimmed off, resulting in phosphorus-free steel.(This is called
the basic Bessemer process, or the Thomas basic process.) This crucial discovery meant that
vast stores of iron ore from many regions of the world could be used to make pig iron for
Bessemer converters, which in turn led to skyrocketing production of cheap steel in Europe and
the U.S. In the U.S., for example, in 1867, 460,000 tons of wrought iron rails were made and
sold for $83 per ton; only 2550 tons of Bessemer steel rails were made, fetching a price of up to
$170 per ton. By 1884, in contrast, iron rails had virtually ceased to be made at all; steel rails had
replaced them at an annual production of 1,500,000 tons selling at a price of $32 per ton. Andrew
Carnegies genius for lowering production costs would drive prices as low as $14 per ton before
the end on the century. (This drop in cost was accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in
quality as steel replaced iron rails: from 1865 to 1905, the average life of a rail increased from
two years to ten and the car weight a rail could bear increased from eight tons to seventy.)

The Bessemer process did not have the field to itself for long as inventors sought ways
around the patents (over 100 of them) held by Henry Bessemer. In the 1860s, a rival appeared on
the scene: the open-hearth process, developed primarily by the German engineer Karl Wilhelm
Siemens. This process converts iron into steel in a broad, shallow, open-hearth furnace (also
called a Siemens gas furnace since it was fueled first by coal gas, later by natural gas) by adding
wrought iron or iron oxide to molten pig iron until the carbon content is reduced by dilution and
oxidation. Using exhaust gases to preheat air and gas prior to combustion, the Siemens furnace
could achieve very high temperatures. As with Bessemer converters, the use of basic materials
such as limestone in open-hearth furnaces helps to remove phosphorus from the molten metal (a
modification calledthe basic open-hearth process). Unlike the Bessemer converter, which
makes steel in one volcanic rush, the open-hearth process takes hours and allows for periodic
laboratory testing of the molten steel so that steel can be made to the precise specifications of the
customer as to chemical composition and mechanical properties. The open hearth process also
allows for the production of larger batches of steel than the Bessemer process and the recycling
of scrap metal. Because of these advantages, by 1900 the open hearth process had largely
replaced the Bessemer process. (After 1960, it was in turn replaced by the basic oxygen process,
a modification of the Bessemer process, in the production of steel from iron ore, and by the
electric-arc furnace in the production of steel from scrap.)

Unlike many of his competitors, Andrew Carnegie was quick to recognize the importance
of the Bessemer, Thomas basic, and open-hearth processes. He was also among the first
steelmakers to grasp the vital importance of chemistry in steelmaking. These became keys to his
success as a steel manufacturer.

The mass production of cheap steel, made possible by the discoveries described above
(and many others not mentioned), has revolutionized our world. Consider a brief and incomplete
list of the products made possible (or better or more affordable) by cheap, abundant steel:
railroads, oil and gas pipelines, refineries, power plants, power lines, assembly lines,
skyscrapers, elevators, subways, bridges, reinforced concrete, automobiles, trucks, buses,
trolleys, refrigerators, washing machines, clothes dryers, dishwashers, nails, screws, bolts, nuts,
needles, wire, watches, clocks, canned food, battleships, aircraft carriers, oil tankers, ocean
freighters, shipping containers, cranes, bulldozers, tractors, farm implements, fences, knives,
forks, spoons, scissors, razors, surgical instruments, ball-bearings, turbines, drill bits, saws, and
tools of every sort.
 In view of his moral failings, can we really consider Carnegie a portrait of human
greatness? The case for an affirmative answer is this. We are heirs to thousands of years of
technological progress, and we benefit every day from the ingenuity and hard work of many
thousands of blacksmiths, ironworkers, steelworkers, engineers, inventors, chemists,
metallurgists, and entrepreneurs, long since deceased, one of whom was Carnegie and few of
whom were saints. Our standard of living today owes much to Carnegies entrepreneurial drive,
self-education, and genius for efficiency. Whatever his flaws and who among us has none?
Carnegie embodied a type of human greatness that deserves our appreciation and gratitude.
Without forgetting the contributions of others (especially his workers), we should make the same
judgment about Carnegie that Stephen Ambrose makes about the men who built the first
transcontinental railroad: Things happened as they happened. It is possible to imagine all kinds
of different routes across the continent, or a better way for the government to help private
industry, or maybe to have the government build and own it. But those things didnt happen, and
what did take place is grand. So we admire those who did it even if they were far from perfect
for what they were and what they accomplished and how much each of us owes them.
(Nothing Like It In the World [New York: Simon and Schuster: 2000], p. 382)

Sources Consulted

Ashton, T.S. Iron and Steel In the Industrial Revolution. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968.

Carnegie, Andrew. The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Northeastern University

Press, 1986.

Carnegie, Andrew. The Empire of Business. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902. (See esp.
Steel Manufacture in the United States in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 229-242.)
Chard, Jack. Making Iron and Steel: The Historic Processes, 1700-1900. Ringwood, NJ: North
Jersey Highlands Historical Society, 1995.

Fisher, Douglas Alan. The Epic of Steel. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

Iron and Steel Industry. Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 12. Chicago: Encyclopedia
Britannica, 1968.

Landes, David. Technological Change and Development in Western Europe, 1750-1914, in

Postan and Habakkuk eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Volume VI, Part I.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 274-601, esp. pp. 444-8 and 477-496.

Livesay, Harold C. Andrew Carnegie and the Rise of Big Business. HarperCollins Publishers,
1975.

Pounds, Norman J.G. The Geography of Iron and Steel. Second edition. London: Hutchinson
University Library, 1963.

Rosenberg, Nathan and L.E. Birdzell, Jr. How the West Grew Rich: The Economic
Transformation of the Industrial World. New York: Basic Books, 1986.

Stubbles, John. The Basic Oxygen Steelmaking Process. American Iron and Steel Institute
Steelworks Learning Center. http://www.steel.org/learning/howmade/bos_process.htm

Wall, Joseph Frazier. Andrew Carnegie. Second edition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1989

http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/h-carnegie-steel.htm
Indonesia Integrated Steel Millhttps://www.google.co.id/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiChYzt283SAh
UFmZQKHcuVBMcQFgghMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffanyv88.com%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fwww.poscoenc.com%2Fupload%2Fe
%2Fbusiness
%2Feng_plant_2_1_1_0.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGYyLEGtxSTVGq9GiFqOU7glNDKIw

Developments of Steelmaking Processes

The earliest known production of steel are pieces of ironware excavated from an archaeological site in
Anatolia and are nearly 4,000 years old, dating from 1800 BCE (before common era). Horace identified
steel weapons like the falcata in the Iberian Peninsula, while Noric steel was used by the Roman army.
The reputation of Seric iron of South India (wootz steel) amongst the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, East
Africans, Chinese and the Middle East grew considerably. South Indian and Mediterranean sources
including Alexander the Great (3rd century BCE) recount the presentation and export to the Greeks of
such steel. Metal production sites in Sri Lanka employed wind furnaces driven by the monsoon winds,
capable of producing high-carbon (C) steel. Large-scale wootz steel production in Tamilakam using
crucibles and C sources such as the plant Avaram occurred by the sixth century BCE, the pioneering
precursor to modern steel production and metallurgy. Steel was produced in large quantities in
Sparta around 650 BCE.
The Chinese of the Warring states period (403 BCE to 221 BCE) had quenched hardened steel, while
Chinese of the Han dynasty (202 BCE to 220 CE) created steel by melting together wrought iron with cast
iron, gaining an ultimate product of a carbon-intermediate steel by the 1st century CE (common era). The
Haya people of East Africa invented a type of furnace they used to make C steel at 1,800 deg C nearly
2,000 years ago. East African steel has been suggested by Richard Hooker to date back to 1400 BCE.
Evidence of the earliest production of high C steel in the Indian subcontinent is found in Kodumanal in
Tamilnadu, Golkonda in Telengana, and Karnataka and in Samanalawewa areas of Sri Lanka. This steel
known as wootz steel, produced by about sixth century BCE was exported globally. The steel technology
existed prior to 326 BCE in the region as they are mentioned in literature of Sangam Tamil, Arabic and
Latin as the finest steel (called Seric iron) in the world exported to the Romans, Egyptian, Chinese and
Arabs worlds at that time. Since the technology was acquired from South India, the origin of steel
technology in India can be conservatively estimated at 500 BCE to 400 BCE.
Wootz, also known as Damascus steel, is famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge. As known
from the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis, this steel was originally created from a number of different
materials including various trace elements. However, the steel was an old technology in India when King
Porus presented a steel sword to the emperor Alexander in 326 BCE. It was essentially a complicated
alloy with iron as its main component. Recent studies have suggested that carbon nanotubes were
included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though given the technology
of that time, such qualities were produced by chance rather than by design. Natural wind was used where
the soil containing iron was heated by the use of wood. The ancient Sinhalese managed to extract a ton
of steel for every 2 tons of soil, a remarkable feat at the time. One such furnace was found in
Samanalawewa and archaeologists were able to produce steel as the ancients did.
Various methods were used to produce steel in Indian sub-continent. According to Islamic texts such as
al-Tarsusi and Abu Rayhan Biruni, three methods are described for indirect production of steel. The
medieval Islamic historian Abu Rayhan Biruni (973 CE to 1050 CE) provides the earliest reference of the
production of Damascus steel. He describes only three methods for producing steel. The first two
methods have a long history in Central Asia and in the Indian subcontinent while the third is exclusive to
South Asia. These three methods are generally considered to have originated from the Indian
subcontinent. The first method and the most common traditional method is solid state carburization of
wrought iron. This is a diffusion process in which wrought iron is packed in crucibles or a hearth with
charcoal, then heated to promote diffusion of C into the iron to produce steel. Carburization is the basis
for the wootz process of steel (a kind of cementation process). The second method is the
decarburization of cast iron by removing C from the cast iron (a kind of crucible process). Another indirect
method uses wrought iron and cast iron. In this process, wrought iron and cast iron may be heated
together in a crucible to produce steel by fusion. In regard to this method Abu Rayhan Biruni states: this
was the method used in Hearth.
Variations of co-fusion process have been found preliminary in Persia and Central Asia but have also
been found in Hyderabad, India. For the C, a variety of organic materials are specified by the
contemporary Islamic authorities, including pomegranate rinds, acorns, fruit skins like orange peel, leaves
as well as the white of egg and shells. Slivers of wood are mentioned in some of the Indian sources, but
significantly none of the sources mention charcoal.
Crucible steel, formed by slowly heating and cooling pure iron and C (typically in the form of charcoal) in a
crucible, was produced in Merv by the 9th to 10th century CE. In the 11th century, there is evidence of the
production of steel in Song China using two techniques namely (i) a berganesque method that produced
inferior, inhomogeneous, steel, and (ii) a precursor to the Bessemer process that used partial de-
carbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast.
The production of steel by the cementation process was described in a treatise published in Prague in
1574 and was in use in Nuremberg from 1601.
Cementation process of making steel
The cementation process is an obsolete method of making steel by carburization of iron. Unlike modern
steelmaking, it increased the amount of C in the iron. It was apparently developed before the 17th
century. Derwentcote steel furnace, built in 1720, is the earliest surviving example of a cementation
furnace. Two cementation furnaces which certainly existed in the early 16th century have been excavated
in England.
The process begins with wrought iron and charcoal. It used one or more long stone pots inside a furnace.
Typically, each was 14 feet (4.27 m) by 4 feet (1.22 m) and 3.5 feet (1.07 m) deep. Iron bars and charcoal
are packed in alternating layers, with a top layer of charcoal and then refractory matter to make the pot
airtight. Some manufacturers used a mix of powdered charcoal, soot and mineral salts, called cement
powder. In larger works, up to 16 tons of iron was treated in each cycle.
Standard wrought iron bars were placed in the cementation furnace for conversion into cementation or
blister steel. The furnace was constructed from sandstone in the form of a large chest with a lid and was
loaded with the iron bars placed in layers inter spaced with large quantities of high quality charcoal. When
fully loaded, the lid was put in place and mortar use to seal the chest. Heating was applied from a fire
below the furnace where a coal fire was maintained from a pit. Heat was maintained for up to a week and
a further week was taken for the chest to cool before being opened, emptied, and reloaded.
The common design for cementation furnaces had two chests side by side with a fire hole in the centre of
the two and the whole lot contained within a bottle shaped structure, similar to glass cones and pottery
kilns, that sheltered the furnaces from the weather and acted as a chimney. The placing of two furnace
chest together would allow the one fire to heat the first chest while the second was cooling and being
reloaded.
During the long slow heating C from the charcoal was absorbed into the iron bars. When removed from
the furnace, the steel had a blistered appearance (thus the alternative name). These blisters contained
steel with a high C content while the centre of the bars were still wrought iron with very little C, thus blister
steel was of little if any use until it had been processed further.
The blister steel was heated and forged under a hammer such that the bar was folded over on its self.
This resulted in Shear Steel, a second round of folding and hammering produced steel known as double
shear, a better quality produce, further rounds of folding and hammering produced still higher grades of
steel. A plan and elevation view of a typical cementation furnace is at Fig 1.

Fig 1 Typical view of a cementation furnace

Crucible steel
Crucible steel is a term that applies to steel made by two different methods in the modern era, although it
has been produced in varying locales throughout history. It is made by melting iron and other materials in
a crucible and pouring the molten liquid into a mould. Crucible steel was produced in South and Central
Asia during the medieval era. Techniques for production of high quality steel were developed by Benjamin
Huntsman in England in the 18th century. His process used iron and steel as raw materials. The
homogeneous crystal structure of this cast steel improved its strength and hardness compared to
preceding forms of steel.
Crucible steel is generally attributed to production centres in India and Sri Lanka where it was produced
using the wootz process, and it is assumed that its appearance in other locations was due to long
distance trade. Only recently it has become apparent that places in Central Asia like Merv in
Turkmenistan and Akhsiket in Uzbekistan were important centres of production of crucible steel. The
Central Asian finds are all from excavations and date from the 8th to 12th centuries CE, while the
Indian/Sri Lankan material is as early as 300 BCE. In addition, Indias iron ore had trace vanadium (V)
and other rare earths leading to increased hardenability in Indian crucible steel which was famous
throughout the middle-east for its ability to retain an edge.
While crucible steel is more attributed to the Middle East in early times, there have been swords
discovered in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. The swords in question have the ambiguous name
etched into it, Ulberht. These swords actually date in a 200-year period from the 9th century to the early
11th century. It is speculated by many that the process of making the blades originated in the Middle East
and subsequently been traded during the Volga trade route days.
In the first centuries of the Islamic period, there appear some scientific studies on swords and steel. The
best known of these are by Jabir ibn Ayyan (8th century), al-Kindi (9th century), Abu Rayhan Biruni (early
11th century), Murda al Tarsusi (late 12th century), and Fakhr-i-Mudabbir (13th century). Any of these
contains far more information about Indian and damascene steels than appears in the entire literature of
classical Greece and Rome.
Benjamin Huntsman was a clockmaker in search of better steel for clock springs. He began producing
steel in 1740 after years of experimenting in secret. Huntsmans system used a coke-fired furnace
capable of reaching 1,600 deg C, into which up to twelve clay crucibles, each capable of holding about
15 kg of iron, were placed. When the crucibles or pots were white-hot, they were charged with lumps of
blister steel, an alloy of iron and C produced by the cementation process, and a flux to help remove
impurities. The pots were removed after about 3 hours in the furnace, impurities in the form of
slag skimmed off, and the liquid steel poured into moulds to end up as cast ingots. Complete melting of
the steel produced a highly uniform crystal structure upon cooling, which gave the metal increased tensile
strength and hardness compared to other steels being made at the time.
The steel was produced in specialized workshops called crucible furnaces in Sheffield, England, which
consisted of a workshop at ground level and a subterranean cellar. The furnace buildings varied in size
and architectural style, growing in size towards the latter part of the 19th century as technological
developments enabled multiple pots to be fired at once, using gas as a heating fuel. Each workshop had
a series of standard features, such as rows of melting holes, teeming pits, roof vents, rows of shelving for
the crucible pots and annealing furnaces to prepare each pot before firing. Ancillary rooms for weighing
each charge and for the manufacture of the clay crucibles were either attached to the workshop, or
located within the cellar complex. The steel, originally intended for making clock springs, was later used in
other applications such as scissors, axes and swords.
In another method, developed in the United States in the 1880s, iron and C were melted together directly
to produce crucible steel. Throughout the 19th century and into the 1920s a large amount of crucible steel
was directed into the production of cutting tools, where it was called tool steel.
The crucible process continued to be used for specialty steels, but is obsolete today.
Another form of crucible steel was developed in 1837 by the Russian engineer, Pavel Anosov. His
technique relied less on the heating and cooling, and more on the quenching process of rapidly cooling
the liquid steel when the right crystal structure had formed within. He called his steel bulat. The secret of
the process died with him. In the United States crucible steel was pioneered by William Metcalf. While
crucible steel was very high quality, it was also expensive; however a sign of the quality was the use of
crucible steel into the 1950s for specialist uses.
The Bessemer process brought about the end of crucible steel for the less critical uses.
The Bessemer process and modern steelmaking
The history of modern steelmaking began in the 19th century, when Reaumur of France in 1772, Kelly of
the United States in 1850 and Bessemer of Britain in 1856 discovered how to improve on pig iron by
controlling the carbon content of iron alloys, which thus truly become steels. While Reaumur, a chemist,
was driven by scientific curiosity, but Kerry and Bessemer being engineers, were responding to the need
for larger quantities and better qualities of steel which the industrial revolution, with its looms, steam
engines, machines and railroads, had created. This had started a dialectical relationship between science
and technology and the basic concepts of refining hot metal (pig iron) by oxidizing C in a liquid bath were
invented at that time.
The growth of railroads during the 19th century in both Europe and America put great pressure on the iron
and steel industry, which still struggled with inefficient production processes. Yet steel was still unproven
as a structural metal and production was slow and costly. That was until 1856, when Henry
Bessemer came up with a more effective way to introduce oxygen (O2) into liquid iron in order to reduce
the C content.
Starting in January 1855, he began working on a way to produce steel in the massive quantities required
for artillery and by October he filed his first patent related to the Bessemer process. Bessemer first started
working with an ordinary reverberatory furnace but during a test a couple of pig ingots got off to the side
of ladle and were sitting above it in the hot air of the furnace. When Bessemer went to push them into the
ladle he found that they were steel shells: the hot air alone had converted the outer parts of the ingots to
steel. This crucial discovery led him to completely redesign his furnace so that it would force high-
pressure air through the liquid iron using special air pumps. Intuitively this would seem to be folly because
it would cool the iron, but due to exothermic oxidation both the silicon (Si) and C react with the excess O2
leaving the surrounding molten iron even hotter, facilitating the conversion to steel.
Now known as the Bessemer process, Bessemer designed a pear-shaped receptacle referred to as a
converter in which iron could be heated while O2 could be blown through the liquid metal. As O2
passed through the liquid metal, it would react with the C, release carbon dioxide (CO2) and produce a
more pure iron.
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from
liquid iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the
process in 1855. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown
through the liquid iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten.
The process is carried on in a large ovoid steel container lined with clay or dolomite called the Bessemer
converter. The capacity of a converter was from 8 tons to 30 tons of liquid iron with a usual charge being
around 15 tons. At the top of the converter is an opening, usually tilted to the side relative to the body of
the vessel, through which the iron is introduced and the finished product removed. The bottom is
perforated with a number of channels called tuyeres through which air is forced into the converter. The
converter is pivoted on trunnions so that it can be rotated to receive the charge, turned upright during
conversion, and then rotated again for pouring out the liquid steel at the end.
The oxidation process removes impurities such as Si, C, and manganese (Mn) as oxides. These oxides
either escape as gas or form a solid slag. The refractory lining of the converter also plays a role in the
conversionthe fireclay lining was used in the acid Bessemer, in which there is low phosphorus (P) in the
raw material. Dolomite is used when the P content is high in the basic Bessemer (limestone or magnesite
linings are also sometimes used instead of dolomite). In order to give the steel the desired properties,
other substances could be added to the liquid steel when conversion was complete, such as spiegeleisen
(an iron carbon- manganese alloy).
When the required steel had been formed, it was poured out into ladles and then transferred into moulds
and the lighter slag is left behind. The conversion process called the blow was completed in around
twenty minutes. During this period the progress of the oxidation of the impurities was judged by the
appearance of the flame issuing from the mouth of the converter. After the blow, the liquid metal was
recarburized to the desired point and other alloying materials are added, depending on the desired
product. The Bessemer process reduced to about half an hour the time needed to make steel of this
quality while requiring only the coke needed to melt the pig iron initially. Fig 2 shows the Bessemer
converter.

Fig 2 Bessemer converter

Bessemer licensed the patent for his process to five ironmasters, for a total of GBP 27,000, but the
licenses failed to produce the quality of steel he had promised and he later bought them back for GBP
32,500. He realized the problem was due to impurities in the iron and concluded that the solution lay in
knowing when to turn off the flow of air in his process; so that the impurities had been burnt off, but just
the right amount of C remained. However, despite spending tens of thousands of pounds on experiments,
he could not find the answer. The simple, but elegant, solution was first discovered by Robert Forester
Mushet who had carried out thousands of scientifically valid experiments. His method was to first burn off,
as far as possible, all the impurities and C, then reintroduce C and Mn by adding an exact amount of
spiegeleisen. This had the effect of improving the quality of the finished product, increasing its malleability
and its ability to withstand rolling and forging at high temperatures and making it more suitable for a vast
array of uses.
The Bessemer process revolutionized steel manufacture by decreasing its cost, from GBP 40 per long ton
to GBP 6-7 per long ton during its introduction, along with greatly increasing the scale and speed of
production of this vital raw material. The process also decreased the labour requirements for steelmaking.
Prior to the introduction of Bessemer process, steel was far too expensive to make bridges or the
framework for buildings and thus wrought iron had been used throughout the Industrial Revolution. After
the introduction of the Bessemer process, steel and wrought iron became similarly priced, and most
manufacturers turned to steel. The availability of cheap steel allowed large bridges to be built and enabled
the construction of railways, skyscrapers, and large ships. The introduction of the large scale steel
production process perfected by the Englishman Henry Bessemer paved the way to mass industrialization
as observed in the 19th-20th centuries.
Commercial steel production using this method stopped in Workington in 1974. It was replaced by
processes such as the basic oxygen process, which offered better control of final chemistry. The
Bessemer process was so fast (1020 minutes for a heat) that it allowed little time for chemical analysis
or adjustment of the alloying elements in the steel. Bessemer converters did not remove P efficiently from
the liquid steel; as low-P ores became more expensive, conversion costs increased. The process
permitted only limited amount of scrap steel to be charged, further increasing costs. Especially when
scrap was inexpensive, use of electric arc furnace (EAF) technology competed favourably with the
Bessemer process resulting in its obsolescence.
The process was fast and inexpensive, removing C and Si from iron in a matter of minutes but suffered
from being too successful. Too much C was removed and too much O2 remained in the final product.
Bessemer ultimately had to repay his investors until he could find a method to increase the C content and
remove the unwanted O2.
Open hearth process of steelmaking
Open hearth (OH) process of steelmaking uses open hearth furnaces. Due to its advantages it soon it
soon displaced Bessemer process of steel making. By 1908, the annual production of steel made by OH
furnace exceeded that made by the Bessemer process. Most OH furnaces were closed by the early
1990s, not least because of their slow operation, being replaced by the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) or
EAF. There are still some steel plants in the world which are making steel by the OH process. The main
advantages of OH process were that it did not expose the steel to excessive nitrogen (which would cause
the steel to become brittle), was easier to control, and it permitted the melting and refining of large
amounts of scrap iron and steel.
German born engineer Carl Wilhelm Siemens developed the Siemens regenerative furnace in the 1850s,
and claimed in 1857 to be recovering enough heat to save 70 % to 80 % of the fuel. This furnace
operated at a high temperature by using regenerative preheating of fuel and air for combustion. In
regenerative preheating, the exhaust gases from the furnace are pumped into a chamber containing
bricks, where heat is transferred from the gases to the bricks. The flow of the furnace is then reversed so
that fuel and air pass through the chamber and are heated by the bricks. Through this method, an OH
furnace can reach temperatures high enough to melt steel, but Siemens did not initially use it for that.
In 1865, the French engineer Pierre-Emile Martin took out a license from Siemens and first applied his
regenerative furnace for making steel. The most appealing characteristic of the Siemens regenerative
furnace is the rapid production of large quantities of basic steel. The usual size of OH furnaces ranges
from 50 tons to 500 tons.
The OH process is a batch process and a batch is called a heat. The furnace is first inspected for
possible damage. Once it is ready or repaired, it is charged with light scrap, such as sheet metal,
shredded vehicles or waste metal. The furnace is heated using burning gas. Once it has melted, heavy
scrap, such as building, construction or steel milling scrap is added, together with hot metal (HM) from
blast furnace (BF). Once all the steel has melted, slag forming agents, such as limestone, are added. The
O2 in iron oxide and other impurities decarburize the HM by burning excess C away, forming steel. To
increase the O2 contents of the heat, iron ore is added to the heat
The process is far slower than that of the Bessemer converter process and thus easier to control and
sample for quality assessment. Preparing a heat usually takes around 8 hours to 9 hours to complete into
steel. As the process is slow, it is not necessary to burn all the C away as in Bessemer process, but the
process can be terminated at given point when desired C contents has been achieved.
The furnace is tapped the same way as a BF is tapped i.e. a hole is drilled on the side of the hearth and
the raw steel flows out. Once all the steel has been tapped, the slag is skimmed away. The raw steel may
be cast into ingots; this process is called teeming, or it may be cast in a continuous casting machine.
The regenerators are the distinctive feature of the furnace and consist of fire-brick flues filled with bricks
set on edge and arranged in such a way as to have a great number of small passages between them.
The bricks absorb most of the heat from the outgoing waste gases and return it later to the incoming cold
gases for combustion. Fig 3 gives a cross section of a Siemens-Martin furnace of 1895.

Fig 3 Cross- section of Siemen-Martin furnace

The Siemens-Martin process complemented rather than replaced the Bessemer process. It is slower and
thus easier to control. It also permitted the melting and refining of large amounts of scrap steel, further
lowering steel production costs and recycling an otherwise troublesome waste material. Its worst
drawback was the fact that melting and refining a charge takes several hours. This was an advantage in
the early 20th century, as it gave plant chemists time to analyze the steel and decide how much longer to
refine it. But by about 1975, electronic instruments such as atomic absorption spectrophotometers had
made analysis of the steel much easier and faster.
Steelmaking in electric furnace
There are two types of furnaces used for electric steelmaking. These are (i) electric arc furnace, and (ii)
induction furnace. Historical development of steelmaking by these two furnaces is given below.
EAF steel making technology is more than hundred years old. Though De Laval had patented an electric
furnace for the melting and refining of iron in 1892 and Heroult had demonstrated electric arc melting of
ferro alloys between 1888 and 1892, the first industrial EAF for steel making only came into operation in
1900. Development was rapid and there was a tenfold increase in production from 1910 to 1920, with
over 500,000 tons being produced in 1920, though this represented still only a very small percentage of
the global production of steel of that time.
Initially, EAF steelmaking was developed for producing special grades of steels using solid forms of feed
such as scrap and ferro alloys. Solid material were firstly melted through direct arc melting, refined
through the addition of the appropriate fluxes and tapped for further processing. Until only around thirty to
thirty five years back, tap to tap times of over three hours were quite common and specific power usage
was often well over 700 kWh/ton nearly twice the thermodynamic requirement. For much of twentieth
century EAF steelmaking was viewed as an expensive and slow process and only suitable for special and
value added steels. Since the 1960s the technology has undergone rapid development and became the
second largest steel making technology behind basic oxygen steelmaking technology.
EAFs are a central part of the production route that is an alternative to the dominant BF-BOF route. A plan
and cross section view of an EAF is shown in Fig 4. EAFs are used to produce C steels and alloy steels
primarily by recycling ferrous scrap. In an EAF, scrap and/or manufactured iron units (such as DRI, pig
iron, and iron carbide, etc.) is melted and converted into high quality steel by using high power electric
arcs formed between a cathode and one (for DC) or three (for AC) anodes. Scrap is by far the most
important resource, accounting for about 80 % of all EAF metal feedstock globally.

Fig 4 Plan and cross section view of electric arc furnace

The rise in EAF production and technology around the globe has been due to the following reasons.
The discontinuation of the OH process as a competitive steel making process.
The desire to move away from the large capital and operating costs associated with large scale
integrated steelmaking towards smaller, less capital intensive mini steel plants.
A very rapid improvement in electrical technology, lowering the costs of large scale electrical
equipment and also allowing for greatly improved control of electrical devices.
The ready availability of scrap in many countries combined with a strong social pressure towards
recycling of metals.
The increasing availability of alternate iron sources, especially from the developing countries.
Use of HM and oxy fuels in the EAFs.
A vast improvement in the operation, control, efficiency and product quality of the EAF based
steel making technology.
Induction furnace (IF) is used for melting of both the ferrous and non-ferrous metals. It produces its heat
cleanly and without combustion. It works on the principle of electromagnetic induction which was
discovered by Michael Faraday.
In 1870, De Ferranti started experiments in Europe on induction furnaces. The first IF for melting metals
was patented by Edward Allen Colby in 1900. The first steel made in an IF in United States of America
was in 1907 in a Colby furnace near Philadelphia. First 3- phase furnace was built in Germany in 1906 by
Rochling- Rodenhauser. Though induction furnaces are being used since a long time, the production of
mild steel by the IF is relatively a very recent phenomenon.
The development of flexible, constant power tracking, medium frequency induction power supplies has
resulted in the widespread use of the batch melting methods. These power units incorporate heavy duty
silicon controlled rectifiers that are able to generate both the frequency and the amperage needed for
batch melting and are able to achieve electrical efficiency levels exceeding 97 %, a substantial
improvement over the 85 % efficiency typical of induction power supplies of the 1970s. This new designs
allow maximum utilization of furnace power throughout the melting cycle with good control of stirring.
Schematics of a coreless induction furnace are shown in Fig 5.
 Fig 5 Schematics of a coreless induction furnace
There are several types of IFs available, but all operate by utilizing a strong magnetic field created by
passing of an electric current through a coil wrapped around the furnace. This electric current creates an
electromagnetic field that passes through the refractory material and couples with the conductive metal
charge inside the furnace. The magnetic field in turn creates a voltage across, and subsequently an
electric current through the metal to be melted. The electrical resistance of the metal produces heat,
which in turn melts the metal and helps it to reach the set point temperature.
IFs are made in a wide range of sizes. Since there is no contact between the charge and the energy
carrier, IF is normally suited for the melting of steel, cast iron and non-ferrous metals, so long as a
suitable lining material can be found. Products made with the IF melting by the industry include mild steel
ingots/billets for structural purposes, stainless steel ingots/billets for making utensils, wire rods and wires,
low alloy steel castings for engineering applications, stainless steel castings for heat and corrosion
resistant components, and alloy steels for forging industry and grinding media.
In India the use of IFs started in mid-sixties. Imported medium frequency induction furnaces were used
from mid-seventies. Induction melting furnaces in India were first installed to make stainless steel from
imported stainless steel scrap. During the years 1981-82 some entrepreneurs, who were having small
size induction furnaces making stainless steel, experimented in making mild steel from steel melting scrap
and they succeeded. Due to this success, sudden growth has taken place in the early eighties to mid-
nineties. During this period indigenous manufacture of the induction furnaces also started. Steel making
through induction furnace emerged during this period as one of the key driver for steel production growth
in the country and is presently accounting for a share of more than 32 % of the total steel production.
Today, India is the largest producer of IFs as well as the largest producer of steel with the IF technology.
Steel making by IFs has grown not only in terms of overall capacity but also in terms of sizes of furnaces.
Today, IFs up to 40 tons capacity are in operation in the country.
Basic oxygen steelmaking
Basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS) is the process of making steel by blowing pure O2 in a liquid metal bath
contained in a vessel which is known as basic oxygen furnace (BOF), LD converter, or simply converter.
The concept of BOS goes back to 1856 when Henry Bessemer patented a steelmaking process involving
O2 blowing for decarbonizing liquid iron (UK Patent number 2207). At that time there was no method
available to supply the quantity of O2 needed for the process. The commercial quantities of O2 were not
available at all or were too expensive, and hence the invention of Bessemer remained only on paper and
remained unused. The steelmaking by blowing pure O2 became practicable in 1928, when the company
Linde succeeded in developing a method (the Linde-Frnkl process) for supplying pure O2 in large
quantities. Due to the success of the Linde- Frnkl process, O2 also became very much cheaper, so that
both preconditions (availability of large quantities as well as availability of cheap O2) for the introduction
of the BOS process were fulfilled.
In both Europe and the USA, experiments with O2 were carried out repeatedly. Among those who worked
with high purity O2 was Otto Lellep, but his concept of blowing O2 vertically onto a bath of liquid iron
proved unsuccessful. As per Hubert Hauttmann, who took part in Lelleps experiments between 1936 and
1939 at the Gutehoffnungshtte, where he was employed at that time, the intention was to convert liquid
iron by blowing in pure O2 through a nozzle in the base of the converter. The steel produced in this way
was of miserable quality.
During the World War II, Engineers by names C. V. Schwartz of Germany, John Miles of Belgium, and
Durrer Switzerland of and Heinrich Heilbrugge of Germany proposed their versions of O2 blown
steelmaking, but only Durrer and Hellbrgge brought it to a level of mass scale production.
Carl Valerian Schwarz submitted a patent application in 1939 for blowing O2 into the bath at supersonic
speed. But this method too was not yet capable of producing usable steel. Although the later Linz-
Donawitz (LD) process had similarities with Schwarzs patent, its typical features were different (for
example central, vertical blowing). It was only due to the outbreak of World War II that the technology
described in Schwarzs patent did not lead initially to any practical applications. It was also at the end of
the 1930s that Robert Durrer of Switzerland began experiments of his own.
After the war, Heinrich Hellbrgge and Robert Durrer (Technical director of the Rollschen Eisenwerke)
began further experiments at Rollschen Eisenwerke in the Swiss town of Gerlafingen. The photograph of
the first top blown oxygen converter at Gerlafingen is shown at Fig 6.

Fig 6 First top blown oxygen converter at Gerlafingen and cross sectional views of oxygen
converter
It was Durrer who laid down the basic theoretical principles and advised VEST to blow the O2 from
above in a separate vessel, after a contact had been established between Gerlafingen and VEST for an
industrial-scale technical cooperation. A series of experiments using a 2 ton experimental converter was
started on 3rd June, 1949 on the premises of VEST. After the team in Linz had suffered several initial
setbacks, a breakthrough was achieved as early as 25th June, 1949, when the O2 pressure was lowered
and the tip of the blowing lance was moved farther away from the bath, so that the jet of O2 could not
penetrate so far. With this breakthrough, steel was produced that could be rolled into sheet without
problems. VESTs experimental department examined this steel and was very positive in its
observations. This was the moment when the LD converter steelmaking process was born. The
experiments continued until several hundred heats of 2 ton had been produced, after which they were
switched to a specially constructed 15 ton experimental converter erected in the open air. The first batch
was produced on 2nd October, 1949. The new grade of steel was subjected to continuous metallurgical
and other tests.
The key factor for this innovation was the movement of liquid bath. Until then it had been considered
impossible to obtain sufficient bath movement without blowing the O2 in at a greater depth. But this
movement was achieved in a highly satisfactory way by the formation of CO (carbon monoxide). The
principle of soft blowing also promoted FeO formation which in turn absorbed the oxidized impurities to
form slag. This helped in the production of an excellent new grade of steel.
In addition to the Rollschen Eisenwerke in Gerlafingen and VEST, Mannesmann AG in Duisburg-
Huckingen and AMG (i.e. Donawitz) also expressed interest in May 1949 in the O2 blowing process or
at least O2 metallurgy in general. During the experiments in Linz and after a demonstration of the
process, a precise division of labour was agreed on 17th June, 1949. VEST was to continue work with
crude steel from Linz in a much larger refining vessel while Mannesmann was to experiment with O2
blowing of Thomas steel, Rollschen Eisenwerke would investigate the use of O2 in the EAF and AMG
would conduct tests with O2 in a low-shaft pig iron furnace. The agreement obliged everyone concerned
with this O2 metallurgy not to issue any statement or pass on any information outside their own
companies regarding details of O2 refining that came to their notice or conclusions they may have
reached during the discussions in Linz on 17th June, 1949.
On the basis of the agreement, it soon became evident from experiments in Donawitz that the use of
oxygen in shaft furnaces was valueless, whereupon the company began to explore different approaches.
The process developed in Donawitz for the recovery of slag with high manganese content by blowing with
O2 led to the awareness that only the use of a blowing process with pure O2 should be considered for the
steel production expansion and rationalization plans in Donawitz. Following extensive investigation and
successful development work on a 5 ton or 10 ton experimental setup, with oxygen supplied during the
first tests from cylinders arranged in series, the company management decided to build a new steelworks,
which would be ready for operation in two years. The Donawitz engineers initially named their process
SK, from the German initials for Oxygen Converter. This term helped distinguish the activities of VEST
and AMG to a certain extent.
On 9th December, 1949 the then managing director of VOEST Heinrich Richter-Brohm took a decision not
without risk for the building of the first LD steelworks. Not long after this and after clarification of questions
concerning production methods for harder grades of steel, it was decided to build an LD plant in Donawitz
as well. The first patents for the process were applied for in 1950.
In the annual research and quality assurance report of 1951, it had been stated that during the review
year extensive research work was devoted to the LD steel grades, and a publication was issued. This
type of steel is expected to possess great potential in terms of quality, and in particular will permit steel
with a high-quality surface combined with good cold formability to be produced. This is especially
important for thin sheet metal production, where until now good cold formability was only possible if
certain surface flaws were accepted (killed steel grades). But steel with higher yield strength can also be
produced extremely advantageously by the O2 refining process.
By 1951 it became possible in Linz to refine hot metal with pure O2 in steelmaking into an innovative,
operationally reliable process for the production of bulk quality steel in Linz. Announcement of the new
process was made for the first time in December 1951, at the conference Steel Refining with Pure
Oxygen of Austrian Society for Metallurgy in Leoben. At the conference Robert Durrer stated that the two
metallurgical plants (Linz and Donawitz) had developed the concept of blowing high purity O2 onto
domestic HM into a viable industrial process, and congratulated them on this great success. With this
announcement Austria became the first country to produce steel on an industrial scale from HM by
blowing pure O2. The cross section LD converter before and during O2 blowing in the liquid metal bath is
shown in Fig 6.
On 27th November, 1952 the first converter was commissioned at LD Steelworks 1 in Linz which was a
milestone in the steel production by the O2 blowing principle. On 5th January, 1953 this LD Steelworks,
the first in the world, was officially opened. By 17th June, 1953, LD Steelworks 1 in Linz had already
produced 100,000 tons of LD steel, and by early December 1953 the 250,000 metric tons of steel was
produced. The second LD Steelworks went into operation on May 22, 1953 at the sterreichisch-Alpine
Montangesellschaft (AMG) in Donawitz. The process, now developed to full operating maturity,
exceeded all expectations in both the quality of the steel it produced and its economic viability. In 2015,
73.4 % of world steel was produced by BOF steel making.
https://www.google.co.id/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi6jNTB2c3SAh
XJo5QKHbXWADwQFghEMAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffanyv88.com%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fispatguru.com%2Fdevelopments-of-
steelmaking-processes%2F&usg=AFQjCNHDWxe8KWXeCZXrzIiH8DZzSvW04Q