Bessemer process

“ Enthusiasm gave place to discredit, condemnation, and abuse, and for a while Bessemer's reputation and the Bessemer process were in danger of extinction. The great inventor, however, was not easily discouraged ; he carried out new experiments at Baxter House, spent thousands of pounds in the construction of fresh plant, and in 1858 he was able to show his numerous licensees why they had failed, and how they could make higher-class steel with certainty. Thus he justified the claims made in his Cheltenham paper of 1856, and proved that he had passed the experimental stage of manufacture. ”

“ Within three weeks of his experiments in France, he had applied for a patent for "Improvements in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel."14 This covered the fusion of steel with pig or cast iron and, though this must be regarded as only the first practical step toward the Bessemer process,15 it was his experiments with the furnace which provided Bessemer with the idea for his later developments. ”

“ Next we hear the story of the Bessemer process from the lips of Sir Henry Bessemer himself, affording us an insight into the methods and characteristics of a mind ingenious, versatile and bold in the highest degree. An inventor of quite other type is next introduced,—Nobel, who gave dynamite to the quarryman and miner, smokeless powder to the gunner and sportsman. His unfaltering heart, beset as he was by constant peril, marks him a hero as brave as ever fought hazardous and dreary campaigns to a victorious close. ”

“ At length, in 1856, at the Cheltenham meeting of the British Association, the scientific world was startled, and almost a panic created at Birmingham, by the announcement of the discovery of the process, since known as the Bessemer process, which was to effect a revolution in the metal industry. The invention, however, remained incomplete till the year 1859, when it first began to be adopted by the Sheffield and Birmingham manufacturers. ”

“ The Bessemer process, which is largely adopted by the manufacturers of steel1562 throughout Europe and America, has proved a source of princely income to its inventor, who obtains a bounty of a shilling on every ton of steel made by it. ”

“ To the purified iron thus obtained he added the requisite amount of carbon and, in half an hour, had a dozen tons of steel. The price of steel rails before and after the Bessemer process came into vogue is a testimony not only to the knowledge of the metallurgist, but to the saving in time, labor and fuel, a real conservation of resources. More recently as high grade ores suitable for the Bessemer process are becoming scarcer the metallurgist has added to his equipment the open-hearth furnace in which ores of a much inferior quality can be smelted. ”

“ Bessemer process, a way of producing steel direct from ore, was successfully evolved in England, and the British now were producing steel, especially steel rails, in considerable quantities. Americans as usual were procrastinating, digressive, self-obstructing. The Bessemer patents were bought and brought to this country. A Kentucky iron master filed an interference on the ground that although he hadn’t developed it in practice he had had that same idea himself, and had had it first, and his contention was sustained. ”

“ We placed them on some of the sharpest curves and their superior service far more than compensated for the advance made by Mr. Thomson. Had the Bessemer process not been successfully developed, I verily believe that we should ultimately have been able to improve the Dodds process sufficiently to make its adoption general. But there was nothing to be compared with the solid steel article which the Bessemer process produced. ”

“ For making castings, especially those which are so thin and intricate that, in order that the molten steel may remain molten long enough to run into the thin parts of the mould, it must be heated initially very far above its melting-point, the Bessemer process has a very great advantage in that it can develop a much higher temperature than is attainable in either of its competitors, the crucible and the open-hearth processes. ”

“ So Bessemer's financial prospects were not very encouraging; but, realizing that the best capital a young man can have is a capital wife, he at once entered into a partnership which placed at his command the combined ideas of two very level heads. The result, after years of thought and experiment, was the Bessemer process of making steel cheaply, which has revolutionized the iron industry throughout the world. His method consists simply in forcing hot air from below into several tons of melted pig-iron, so as to produce intense combustion ”

“ If we glance back for a moment to review our history, we shall see that the open-hearth processes embody the same principle as the first process by which steel was produced, viz., the mutual action of carburized iron and oxide of iron on one another, and the Bessemer process is, after all, though a splendid offspring, only the natural descendant of the finery process, the origin of which, as we have seen, was due to modifications in the primitive blast-furnaces. ”

“ To speak of the enormous increase in the production of steel by the introduction of the Bessemer process has become a commonplace on occasions like the present, and yet I doubt whether its real dimensions are generally known or remembered. In 1869 the manufacture of Bessemer steel had already acquired what was then looked upon as a considerable development in all the principal centers of metallurgical industry, except the United States, but including our own country, Germany, France, and Austria, and the world's production in that year was 400,000 tons. ”

“ Cooper went to Europe, where he ascertained that the Bessemer invention was a total failure, because the material produced was unfit for use. On receipt of this information, we suspended all further efforts to produce steel by the direct process, and, as a matter of fact, it now turns out that no steel was ever made in this experimental apparatus. So far as I know, therefore, the first actual steel made in this country by the Bessemer process was produced at Wyandotte ”

“ During the operation oxygen and nitrogen are absorbed by the steel, although not quite so largely as in the Bessemer process, so that practically the chemical limitations are the same in each.
The open-hearth reductions are much slower than in the Bessemer, each heat requiring from five to eight hours for its completion; the furnace must be operated by a skilled man of good judgment, so that more time [Pg 26] and more skilled labor per ton of product are required than in the Bessemer, and the making of an equal quality as cheaply in the open hearth is problematical. ”

“ Ebbw Vale and the Bessemer Process
After his British Association address in August 1856, Bessemer had received applications from several ironmasters for licenses, which were issued in return for a down payment and a nominal royalty of 25 pence per ton. Among those who started negotiations was Mr. Thomas Brown of Ebbw Vale Iron Works, one of the largest of the South Wales plants. He proposed, however, instead of a license, an outright purchase of Bessemer's patents for £50,000. ”

“ With the growing scarcity of ores suitable for pig iron for Bessemerizing, the open-hearth process is becoming able to compete with the Bessemer process in the matter of cost. For some purposes the steel is considered to be a little more desirable, but, as is the case with many good things, the pendulum swings too far and there is no doubt that open-hearth steel is often 155demanded and used for purposes for which Bessemer steel would be just as good and perhaps better. ”

“ In the bessemer process air is forced through the metal. In the open-hearth furnace the metal is protected from the flaming gases by a slag covering. Therefore it is reasonable to suppose that the final product will not contain so much gas. ”

“ It remarkably foreshadowed the Bessemer process which some years later did achieve the result, revolutionize the industry and cause steel to overlap iron. It failed in Aaron’s hands for want of skill and chemical knowledge. The elements are not passive. They are wilful and rebellious. In their efforts to thwart man’s designs upon them they become cunning and clannish. One helps the other to escape. With this same mechanical equipment steel workers of a later time would have been able to make a perfect steel. ”

“ But this steel was not made by the real Bessemer process. The melted iron, having been quite decarbonised by the air blast, was granulated by being run into water, and was then remelted in a crucible with sufficient manganese to return the desired amount of carbon. It was in June 1859, however, that the first Bessemer steel was run direct from the converter, the decarbonising agent having been put into the charge after the blast had done its work. From this time the manufacture proceeded steadily on a constantly increasing scale. ”

“ All the newer steel plants are equipped with open-hearth furnaces. At Gary, Bessemer is not produced at all, and even the Carnegie Steel Co., which probably did more than any other concern to develop the Bessemer process, now has 133 open-hearth furnaces to 14 Bessemer converters. The Corporation altogether has 335 open-hearth furnaces and 38 converters. ”

“ Bessemer, bes′ėm-ėr, adj. derived from the name of the inventor, Sir H. Bessemer, applied to steel for rails, tires, ship-plates, &c., prepared by the Bessemer process.
Best, best, adj. (serves as superl. of Good) good in the highest degree: first: highest: most excellent.—n. one's utmost endeavour: the highest perfection.—adv. ”

“ Range in Size of Converters.—In the Bessemer process, and indeed in most high-temperature processes, to operate on a large scale has, in addition to the usual economies which it offers in other industries, a special one, arising from the fact that from a large hot furnace or hot mass in general a very much smaller proportion of its heat dissipates through radiation and like causes than from a smaller body, just as a thin red-hot wire cools in the air much faster than a thick bar equally hot. ”

“ After the success of the basic Bessemer process was assured the same principle was tried in the open-hearth; a basic bottom of dolomite or of magnesite was substituted for the acid sand bottom, and care was taken to secure a basic slag in the bath. ”

“ In the welding and rolling the cinder coated globules of iron are forced close [65] together as the iron is welded. This gives the iron a fibrous structure increasing its strength.
Bessemer Process.
In making steel by the Bessemer process, the pig iron is put into a large pear shaped vessel called the converter. The bottom is double; the inner casing is perforated with holes called tuyeres, to admit air forced under pressure. From ten to fifteen tons of molten iron at one time are poured into the converter while it is lying on its side. ”

“ The time for reactions is much longer, and for this reason they ought to be more complete, and they are so in good hands; yet it is a fact that, as the operation is a quiet one compared to the Bessemer, and not nearly so powerful and energetic, a careless or unskilful operator may produce in the open hearth an uneven result that is quite as bad as anything that can be brought out of a Bessemer converter. The process that eliminates the human factor has not yet been invented. ”

“ Bessemer," being "merely a vigorous offshoot proceeding from that great discovery; but, combined with Mr. Bessemer's process, it places within the reach of every iron manufacturer to produce cast steel at the same cost for which he can now make his best iron."71
One of Mushet's replies to the paper itself took the form of the announcement of his provisional patent for the use of his triple compound which, in the opinion of The Mining Journal appeared to be "but a very slight modification of several of Mr. Bessemer's inventions." ”

“ Bessemer continued his career as an inventor and manufacturer, without, however, attracting any great share of public attention. But in 1856 he announced that he had made a discovery of vast importance in the process of steel making. [30] For a hundred years previously the Huntsman [165] process had held the field. It yielded excellent steel but was very expensive. Mr. Bessemer announced that he could produce splendid cast-steel at about the cost of making iron! ”

“ Without this invention I believe that we should have abandoned the mode of running direct from the blast furnace. Above all things, the manufacturer has to regard the uniformity of product, the equality of rails; and this uniformity cannot be obtained without Jones's invention, as far as I know.'
It is true that what is termed the direct process was used in connection with the Bessemer invention in some foreign countries, notably Sweden and France, with more or less success, due to the peculiar character of the ores used in those countries ”

“ On the other hand, it has the advantage over steel that it rusts much less readily. Hence, for outdoor purposes it is still sometimes preferred to the otherwise more popular steel.
Now the problem which Bessemer set before himself was to find out how to make a metal which could be cast like cast iron yet should be as strong and tough as wrought iron. After a little experimenting, by a happy inspiration, he hit upon the idea of blowing air through a mass of molten pig iron, thereby burning out the carbon, just as is done in the puddling process, only much quicker and with less labour. ”