What was the Bessemer process and how did it impact industrial society?

Before 1860, steel was expensive and produced in small quantities, but the development of crucible steel technique by Benjamin Huntsman in the 1740s,the Bessemer process in the 1850s, and the Siemens-Martin process in the 1850s-1860s resulted in the mass production of steel, one of the key advancements behind the Second Industrial Revolution.

Learning Objective

Postulate the effects of improved steel production on the progression of industry.

Key Points

• Steel is an alloy of iron and other elements, primarily carbon, that is widely used in construction and other applications because of its high tensile strength and low cost. Steel’s base metal is iron. It was first produced in antiquity, but two decades before the Industrial Revolution an improvement was made in the production of steel, which at the time was an expensive commodity used only where iron would not do.
• Benjamin Huntsman developed his crucible steel technique in the 1740s. He was able to make satisfactory cast steel in clay pot crucibles, each holding about 34 pounds of blister steel. A flux was added, and they were covered and heated by coke for about three hours. The molten steel was then poured into molds and the crucibles reused. For a long time Huntsman exported his whole output to France as local producers refused to work with steel harder than they were already using.
• Steel is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial mass-production that characterize the Second Industrial Revolution. Before about 1860, steel was still an expensive product. The problem of mass-producing cheap steel was solved in 1855 by Henry Bessemer with the introduction of the Bessemer converter at his steelworks in Sheffield, England. Further experiments by Göran Fredrik Göransson and Robert Forester Mushet allowed Bessemer to perfect what would be known as the Bessemer process.
• Although initially Bessemer met with rebuffs and was forced to undertake the exploitation of his process himself, eventually licences were applied for in such numbers that Bessemer received royalties exceeding a million pounds sterling. By 1870, Bessemer steel was widely used for ship plate. The Bessemer process also made steel railways competitive in price. Experience quickly proved steel had much greater strength and durability and could handle the heavier and faster engines and cars.
• After 1890, the Bessemer process was gradually supplanted by open-hearth steel making. Carl Wilhelm Siemens developed the Siemens regenerative furnace in the 1850s. This furnace operated at a high temperature by using regenerative preheating of fuel and air for combustion. In 1865, Pierre-Émile Martin took out a license from Siemens and applied his regenerative furnace for making steel. The Siemens-Martin process was 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.
• The Siemens-Martin process became the leading steel making process by the early 20th century. The availability of cheap steel allowed larger bridges, railroads, skyscrapers, and ships. Other important steel products—also made using the open hearth process—were steel cable, steel rod, and sheet steel which enabled large, high-pressure boilers and high-tensile strength steel for machinery, creating much more powerful engines, gears, and axles than were previously possible. With large amounts of steel, it also became possible to build much more powerful guns and carriages, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and naval ships.

  These properties make steel far more useful than either wrought or cast iron but there was no simple way to control the carbon level in iron so that steel could be manufactured cheaply and efficiently in large quantities. In 1856 the Bessemer Process made this possible and moved the United States into the Age of Steel.

  Background History of the Bessemer Process for kids: William Kelly
  In 1847 an American named William Kelly (1811 - 1888), the owner of an iron-works at Eddyville, Kentucky started to experiment in processes for converting iron into steel. William Kelly had the idea that, in the refining process, fuel would be unnecessary after the iron was melted if powerful blasts of air were forced into the fluid metal. Theory behind the conversion from iron to steel was that the heat generated by the union of the oxygen of the air with the carbon of the metal, would accomplish the refining (burning off the impurities). This would become known as the Bessemer Process - the procedure to refine fluid iron by passing a stream of air through it, which created the type of steel material used for the making of structures.

  Bessemer Process for kids: Henry Bessemer
  The Bessemer Process is named after the British metallurgist, engineer and inventor Sir Henry Bessemer (1813-1898). During his career, he registered more than 110 patents, the most famous being the converter for what would be called the Bessemer Process. In 1877 the Royal Society of London elected Henry Bessemer into fellowship and two years later, in 1879, he was knighted. His involvement in steel began during the Crimean War (1853 - 1856) when Henry Bessemer was working on the problem of how to create more durable cannons for the British navy. Cannons were traditionally made of cast iron but these were proving unsuitable against new weapons which caused the cannons to explode. Steel was the obvious choice of metal to replace cast iron but it was expensive to produce - until he developed the Bessemer Process.

  
  The Bessemer Process: The Converter

  
  Bessemer Process: The Converter
  In 1856 Henry Bessemer designed what he called a converter:

  ● The converter was a large, pear-shaped receptacle
  ● There were holes at the bottom of the converter to allow the injection of compressed air
  ● The Bessemer converter was filled with molten pig iron
  ● Compressed air was blown through the molten metal
  ● The pig iron was emptied of carbon and silicon in just a few minutes
  ● The metal became even hotter and so remained molten

  Bessemer Process: The Phosphorus Problem
  One problem with the early Bessemer process was that it did not remove phosphorus from the pig iron which makes steel excessively brittle and the initial Bessemer process could only be used on pig iron made from phosphorus-free ores. The phosphorus-free ores were relatively scarce and therefore expensive.

  Bessemer Process for kids: Sidney Gilchrist Thomas
  In 1876, the Welshman Sidney Gilchrist Thomas discovered that by adding a basic material such as limestone to the Bessemer converter drew the phosphorus from the pig iron into the slag. The phosphorus floated to the top of the Bessemer converter where it could be skimmed off. This method resulted in phosphorus-free steel - called the Basic Bessemer process.

  Significance and Impact of the Bessemer Process
  The important discovery by Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and the improvement to the Basic Bessemer Process was highly significant because it meant that massive stores of iron ore from all over the world could be used to make pig iron for Bessemer converters. The impact of the Bessemer process led to the inventions and innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution. Cheap steel revolutionized our modern world was used for the following:

  Skyscrapers ● Railroads ● Bridges ● Transportation vehicles ● Elevators ● Weapons ● Assembly lines ● Kitchen Appliances ● Surgical instruments ● Farm implements ● Tools, Nails and Screws ● Tankers

  What is the Bessemer process and how did it impact industry?

  The Bessemer process allowed steel to be produced without fuel, using the impurities of the iron to create the necessary heat. This drastically reduced the costs of steel production, but raw materials with the required characteristics could be difficult to find.

  What is the Bessemer process simple definition?

  noun. Bes·​se·​mer process ˈbe-sə-mər- : a process of making steel from pig iron by burning out carbon and other impurities by means of a blast of air forced through the molten metal.

  How did the Bessemer process affect the industrial revolution?

  The Bessemer process made possible the manufacture of large amounts of high-quality steel for the first time. This, in turn, provided steel at relatively low cost to various industries. By revolutionizing the steel industry, the Bessemer process helped to spur on the Industrial Revolution.

  What is the Bessemer process and what impact does it have on the US?

  The Bessemer Process was an extremely important invention because it helped made stronger rails for constructing the railroads and helped to make stronger metal machines and innovative architectural structures like skyscrapers. The United States Industrial Revolution moved from the Age of Iron to the Age of Steel.