The Bessemer Impact

The Bessemer Impact. . Henry Bessemer is best known for devising a steel production process that inspired the Industrial Revolution. It was the first cost-efficient industrial process for large scale production of steel from molten pig iron by taking out impurities using an air blast. Bessemer's process still continues to inspire the production of modern steel., Steelmaking by the revolutionary Bessemer process began in Workington in June 1877, with the installation of three 8 ton capacity Bessemer converters. By 1912, these were upgraded to 16 ton capacity and served until 1934. At the time the old Bessemer Shop with its antiquated hydraulic cranes, outdated casting shop and soaking pits were completely replaced., Who was Henry Bessemer? , Henry Bessemer was born in Charlton, Herfordshire in 1813 Henry was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the 19th century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950., Henry Bessemer learnt his trade at his father's foundry where he studied the art of metallurgy and went onto design and invent:, . Indelible Die-preventing re-use of stamps on deeds. , . Back lead pencils using Cumberland plumbago. , . A steam powered machine for the manufacture of bronze powder. , . Improved machinery for sugar refining and the method of manufacture of plate glass, He also played a significant role in establishing the town of Sheffield as a major industrial centre., The Royal Society of London elected Bessemer into fellowship in 1877. Two years later, in 1879, he was knighted. Throughout his career he registered more than 110 patents., Henry Bessemer died on the 15th March 1898 in London. He was 85 years of age., "Over long stretches of smooth steel rails ceaselessly run hundreds of thousands of steel wheels, impelled by hundreds of locomotive engines which owe their power and endurance to my ubiquitous material." -- Sir. Henry Bessemer (1894), The Bessemer Process , The Bessemer converter was a steel vessel, lined with refractory. A blast of air directed through a bath of molten iron oxidised and removed impurities: silicon, carbon and phosphorus., It was a revolution in steelmaking drastically reducing the time and cost of manufacture., Molten iron was poured into the horizontal vessel, the air blast brought up and the vessel turned to vertical in a shower of sparks and smoke., Steelmakers were quick to adopt the patented process, but some were not able to match the quality from West Cumberland producers. Bessemer had to solve the problem and he did so in collaboration with the Workington Iron Company. He discovered that the success of his process was dependent upon the almost complete absence of phosphorus in the pig iron. His early trials had used Swedish iron ore, low in phosphorus. The hematite ore mined in West Cumberland was very low in phosphorus. For over 20 years, every Bessemer steelmaker came here for their pig iron., Rail Expansion , The railways of the world were expanding rapidly and the relatively short life of wrought iron rails meant a major problem in replacement. The experts cannot agree when the first Bessemer rail was laid. Some say it took place 'one dark and stormy night' in Sheffield 1860, others that Crewe station was selected for the first test in 1861. Bessemer himself declared that it was laid in the Camden goods station of the London and North Western Railway on the 9th May 1862, but whenever it was laid it soon became a demonstrable fact that the Bessemer steel rail could outlive the iron rail some ten times., Bessemer steelmaking in West Cumberland lasted for 100 years and made over one third of the acid Bessemer steel in the United Kingdom. It is fitting that the converter should be preserved at the Kelham Island Museum in Sheffield where the first acid Bessemer plant in the world started and an area which has no rival anywhere among metallurgical districts., It stands as a monument to the men who worked these marvellous spectacular monsters and who made the steel which went to almost every country in the world., Stories of the Steelworks , It was very noisy, hot, dirty, and in those days there were no showers - you took your muck home with you and we had no baths in them days even at home - you just got yourself as clean as you could. We worked in our old clothes - the final place for a set of clothes was the steelworks, where they either got burns on them or were beyond repair.", "There were lots of splashes of metal flying all over the place and at times when we were teeming, we couldn't close the ladle off when you moved from ingot to ingot - that was what we called a flying stopper - it was all over the place. If there was any water about it used to fly like the devil. In the very early days I got a burn on the left hand side of my face. I went to the health centre and they put some gentian violet on it, so I had a birth mark on my face. The accident prevention side of the work was nothing like today. We worked the whole time in the Bessemer without eye protection or ear protection. In those days we did get steel helmets that were actually miner's helmets, I always wore mine very religiously. There were bits coming off cranes catching my shoulders and arms, and my head got cut with just a very small washer which the tradesmen left upon the cranes.", "When I was a small boy, my dad, who was a shift production manager the Bessemer department, would occasionally take my brother and I there to visit. The Bessemer was charged with molten metal, the air blast turned on and the vessel retired to the vertical position, while the Bessemer shop was showered by an inferno of sparkling metal particles like the most fantastic firework display ever seen."