In 1740 Benjamin Huntsman developed the crucible technique for steel manufacture, at his workshop in the district of Handsworth in Sheffield.
Wagner believes that the Japanese process may have been similar to the Bessemer process, but cautions that alternative explanations are also plausible. ===Bessemer's patent=== In the early 1850s, the American inventor William Kelly experimented with a method similar to the Bessemer process, but the claim the two invented the same process remains controversial.
The process was said to be independently discovered in 1851 by the American inventor William Kelly though the claim is controversial. The process using a basic refractory lining is known as the "basic Bessemer process" or Gilchrist–Thomas process after the English discoverers Percy Gilchrist and Sidney Gilchrist Thomas. ==History== ===Early history=== A system akin to the Bessemer process has existed since the 11th century in East Asia.
According to Bessemer, his invention was inspired by a conversation with Napoleon III in 1854 pertaining to the steel required for better artillery.
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.
In the 17th century, accounts by European travelers detailed its possible use by the Japanese. The modern process is named after its inventor, the Englishman Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1856.
He patented the method a year later in 1856. Bessemer licensed the patent for his process to four ironmasters, for a total of £27,000, but the licensees failed to produce the quality of steel he had promised—it was "rotten hot and rotten cold", according to his friend, William Clay—and he later bought them back for £32,500.
Bessemer earned over 5 million dollars in royalties from the patents. The first company to license the process was the Manchester firm of W & J Galloway, and they did so before Bessemer announced it at Cheltenham in 1856.
This was the first commercial production. A 20% share in the Bessemer patent was also purchased for use in Sweden and Norway by Swedish trader and Consul Göran Fredrik Göransson during a visit to London in 1857.
However, they subsequently rescinded their license in 1858 in return for the opportunity to invest in a partnership with Bessemer and others.
This partnership began to manufacture steel in Sheffield from 1858, initially using imported charcoal pig iron from Sweden.
During the first half of 1858, Göransson, together with a small group of engineers, experimented with the Bessemer process at Edsken near Hofors, Sweden before he finally succeeded.
Later in 1858 he again met with Henry Bessemer in London, managed to convince him of his success with the process, and negotiated the right to sell his steel in England.
In 1862 Göransson built a new factory for his Högbo Iron and Steel Works company on the shore of Lake Storsjön, where the town of Sandviken was founded.
In 1862, he visited Bessemer's Sheffield works, and became interested in licensing the process for use in the US.
Holley secured a license for Griswold and Winslow to use Bessemer's patented processes and returned to the United States in late 1863. The trio began setting up a mill in Troy, New York in 1865.
Holley secured a license for Griswold and Winslow to use Bessemer's patented processes and returned to the United States in late 1863. The trio began setting up a mill in Troy, New York in 1865.
Between 1866 and 1877, the partners were able to license a total of 11 Bessemer steel mills. One of the investors they attracted was Andrew Carnegie, who saw great promise in the new steel technology after a visit to Bessemer in 1872, and saw it as a useful adjunct to his existing businesses, the Keystone Bridge Company and the Union Iron Works.
The factory contained a number of Holley's innovations that greatly improved productivity over Bessemer's factory in Sheffield, and the owners gave a successful public exhibition in 1867.
Between 1866 and 1877, the partners were able to license a total of 11 Bessemer steel mills. One of the investors they attracted was Andrew Carnegie, who saw great promise in the new steel technology after a visit to Bessemer in 1872, and saw it as a useful adjunct to his existing businesses, the Keystone Bridge Company and the Union Iron Works.
Using the Bessemer process, Carnegie Steel was able to reduce the costs of steel railroad rails from $100 per ton to $50 per ton between 1873 and 1875.
The new mill, known as the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, opened in 1875, and started the growth of the United States as a major world steel producer.
Using the Bessemer process, Carnegie Steel was able to reduce the costs of steel railroad rails from $100 per ton to $50 per ton between 1873 and 1875.
He built a mill in 1876 using the Bessemer process for steel rails and quadrupled his production. Bessemer steel was used in the United States primarily for railroad rails.
Between 1866 and 1877, the partners were able to license a total of 11 Bessemer steel mills. One of the investors they attracted was Andrew Carnegie, who saw great promise in the new steel technology after a visit to Bessemer in 1872, and saw it as a useful adjunct to his existing businesses, the Keystone Bridge Company and the Union Iron Works.
In 1877, Abram Hewitt wrote a letter urging against the use of Bessemer steel in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The manager at the time, Edward Martin, offered Sidney equipment for large-scale testing and helped him draw up a patent that was taken out in May 1878.
Several of them have since returned to England and may have spoken of my invention there." It is suggested Kelly's process was less developed and less successful than Bessemer's process. Sir Henry Bessemer described the origin of his invention in his autobiography written in 1890.
The price of steel continued to fall until Carnegie was selling rails for $18 per ton by the 1890s.
Steel rail cars were longer and were able to increase the freight to car weight from 1:1 to 2:1. As early as 1895 in the UK it was being noted that the heyday of the Bessemer process was over and that the open hearth method predominated.
An additional advantage was that the processes formed more slag in the converter, and this could be recovered and used very profitably as a phosphate fertilizer. ==Importance== In 1898, Scientific American published an article called Bessemer Steel and its Effect on the World explaining the significant economic effects of the increased supply in cheap steel.
By 1910, American companies were producing 26 million tons of steel annually. William Walker Scranton, manager and owner of the Lackawanna Iron & Coal Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, had also investigated the process in Europe.
The basic process, the Thomas-Gilchrist process, remained in use longer, especially in Continental Europe, where iron ores were of high phosphorus content and the open-hearth process was not able to remove all phosphorus; almost all inexpensive construction steel in Germany was produced with this method in the 1950s and 1960s.
The basic process, the Thomas-Gilchrist process, remained in use longer, especially in Continental Europe, where iron ores were of high phosphorus content and the open-hearth process was not able to remove all phosphorus; almost all inexpensive construction steel in Germany was produced with this method in the 1950s and 1960s.
It was eventually superseded by basic oxygen steelmaking. ==Obsolescence== In the U.S., commercial steel production using this method stopped in 1968.
The company was renamed Sandviken’s Ironworks, continued to grow and eventually became Sandvik in the 1970s. ===Industrial revolution in the United States=== Alexander Lyman Holley contributed significantly to the success of Bessemer steel in the United States.
Such steel when rolled into bars was sold at £50 to £60 (approximately £3,390 to £4,070 in 2008) a long ton.
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