Metals in AMERICA THE HISTORY OF. CHARLES R. SIMCOE Edited by Frances Richards. The History of Metals in America SIMCOE

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1 SIMCOE THE HISTORY OF Metals in AMERICA CHARLES R. SIMCOE Edited by Frances Richards ASM International Materials Park, Ohio _Book.indb 1 5/16/18 11:01 AM 5/16/18 11:20 AM

2 Copyright 2018 by ASM International All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the copyright owner. First printing, May 2018 Great care is taken in the compilation and production of this book, but it should be made clear that NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE GIVEN IN CONNECTION WITH THIS PUBLICATION. Although this information is believed to be accurate by ASM, ASM cannot guarantee that favorable results will be obtained from the use of this publication alone. This publication is intended for use by persons having technical skill, at their sole discretion and risk. Since the conditions of product or material use are outside of ASM s control, ASM assumes no liability or obligation in connection with any use of this information. No claim of any kind, whether as to products or information in this publication, and whether or not based on negligence, shall be greater in amount than the purchase price of this product or publication in respect of which damages are claimed. THE REMEDY HEREBY PROVIDED SHALL BE THE EXCLUSIVE AND SOLE REMEDY OF BUYER, AND IN NO EVENT SHALL EITHER PARTY BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHETHER OR NOT CAUSED BY OR RESULTING FROM THE NEGLIGENCE OF SUCH PARTY. As with any material, evaluation of the material under end-use conditions prior to specification is essential. Therefore, specific testing under actual conditions is recommended. Nothing contained in this book shall be construed as a grant of any right of manufacture, sale, use, or reproduction, in connection with any method, process, apparatus, product, composition, or system, whether or not covered by letters patent, copyright, or trademark, and nothing contained in this book shall be construed as a defense against any alleged infringement of letters patent, copyright, or trademark, or as a defense against liability for such infringement. Comments, criticisms, and suggestions are invited, and should be forwarded to ASM International. Prepared under the direction of the ASM International Technical Book Committee ( ), Craig Schroeder, Chair. ASM International staff who worked on this project include Scott Henry, Senior Content Engineer; Karen Marken, Senior Managing Editor; Susan Sellers, Content Developer; Madrid Tramble, Manager of Production; and Jennifer Kelly, Production Specialist Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN-13: ISBN-10: EISBN: SAN: ASM International Materials Park, OH Printed in the United States of America

3 To Mary and our family Robert, Joyce, Thomas, William, Richard, and Janice

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5 Contents Note to Readers Preface About the Author ix xi xiii Chapter One The Discovery of Metals 1 Chapter Two Iron in America 1645 to Ironmaking Spreads to More Colonies 13 Canal Building in Pennsylvania 18 Anthracite Coal Replaces Charcoal in Ironmaking 21 Ironmaking Pioneer John Fritz 21 Ironmaking Expands for the Railroads 23 Chapter Three The Age of Steel 1870 to Experimental Work Begins on Air Blowing to Make Steel 25 Bessemer Process Enters Production 29 Bessemer Steel Becomes an Industry 30 Andrew Carnegie The Immigrant 32 Carnegie Enters the Iron and Steelmaking Industry 34 Captain Billy Jones Joins Carnegie Steel 36 Carnegie Steel Expands 39 The Great Strike of 1892 at Homestead 41 New Steel Markets Open 42 Andrew Carnegie Sells His Steel Empire 44 Chapter Four Metallography The New Science of Metals 47 Early Studies of the Internal Structure of Metal 48 X-Ray Diffraction 52 v

6 vi The Discovery of Precipitation Hardening 53 Research on the Mechanism of Age Hardening 57 Chapter Five The History of Engineering Alloy Steels 59 Chromium Alloy Steels 60 Nickel Alloy Steels 60 Nickel-Chromium Alloy Steels 62 Automotive Demand for Alloy Steels 63 Development of Specifications for Alloy Steels 64 An Organization for Heat Treaters 65 Research on the Hardening of Steel 66 The Transformation of Austenite 68 The Solution to Hardenability Testing 69 The Tempering of As-Quenched Martensite 71 Chapter Six The Toolmakers 73 The Age of Making Steel 74 Crucible Melting to Make Steel 75 New Alloy for Tool Steels 80 Research on High-Speed Steel 82 Advanced Research on High-Speed Steel 83 Molybdenum as a Substitute for Tungsten 84 Cleveland Twist Drill Company is First Adopter of Molybdenum High-Speed Steel 85 MIT Research on High-Speed Tool Steels 86 Research at the Union Carbide and Carbon Laboratories 88 Advanced Work in Sweden 89 Chapter Seven Stainless Steel 93 The Discovery of Stainless Steel 94 Patents 96 Applications 99 The 1930s and 1940s 99 Development of New Alloys 100 The Argon Oxygen Decarburization Process 102 New Uses 103

7 Contents vii Chapter Eight Aluminum The Light Metal 107 The Invention 108 Charles Martin Hall 109 A Pilot Plant for Making Aluminum 110 The Pilot Plant 111 A New Production Plant 113 The Move to Niagara Falls, New York 114 Early Aluminum Applications 114 Raw Materials 117 World War I 118 Ongoing Research 119 Alloy Development 121 Aluminum for World War II 123 Aerospace Applications for Aluminum Alloys 124 Recent New Alloys 126 Chapter Nine Titanium A New Metal for the Aerospace Age 129 Titanium Made at General Electric Corporation 129 Invention of a Process for Making Titanium 131 Studies of Properties 134 Sponge Production 135 Research Progress 142 The Titanium Metallurgical Laboratory 143 Chapter Ten Pioneers in Metals Research 153 Henry Marion Howe 153 Albert Sauveur 158 Isaiah (Zay) Jeffries 161 Paul Dyer Merica 165 Edgar C. Bain 168 Samuel Leslie Hoyt 173 Francis L. VerSnyder 178 Chapter Eleven The Integrated Steel Industry 1901 to The United States Steel Corporation 187 Bethlehem Steel Corporation 194

8 viii Little Steel Companies 201 Labor 202 Chapter Twelve The Decline of the Integrated Steel Industry 207 Strike of Technology and Imports 208 Devastation in Pittsburgh 213 Other Widespread Closures 214 Minimills 214 Mittal 215 Chapter Thirteen The Steel Minimills 219 The First Minimill 219 Heffernan s Third Minimill 222 The First Minimill for Flat Products 222 Steel Beams and Railroad Rails 223 Iverson Leads Industry 223 Growth of the Minimill Industry 223 Minimill Consolidation 226 New Processes for Making Iron 228 Index 231

9 Charles R. Simcoe Edited by Frances Richards Copyright 2018 ASM International All rights reserved Note to Readers Becoming a published author was a longtime dream of our father, Charles Robert Bob Simcoe. As a metallurgical researcher by profession and a voracious reader of history and biographies, he wanted to pass his knowledge on to others. On February 25, 2017, however, he died quietly in the intensive care unit of Iroquois Memorial Hospital. He was just one month shy of turning 94. During his final month, while in a rehabilitation center, he continued to revise and edit chapters of this book and began to write the preface. But the three paragraphs of the preface following this note are all he managed before his death. Those three paragraphs, though, can only hint at the story behind the scenes. As a research metallurgist, our father worked to support a family of eight, with little time for extra activities. But he loved to tell stories about metals and would readily explain the structure of a building down to the tiniest screw or the composition of the soda can from which we might be drinking. After he retired, he began to put the stories in this book together, at first as a hobby and for his own amusement. He researched not only in libraries but also among his own files, along with interviewing friends in and retired from the industry and creating a blog for a wider audience. Writing for long periods was interrupted by the need to care for our mother, Mary, who was diagnosed with memory loss and eventually Alzheimer s disease. As our mother s health deteriorated and she was placed in a nursing home, Dad again took time to write. Even though he spent countless hours with our mother, it was then that he began to contact editors at Advanced Materials & Processes, ASM International s flagship publication, about turning his blog into a series of articles. He did not let rejection stand in his way. On March 14, 2013, our mother passed away quietly in her sleep. By then, they had been married over 71 years. In the following months, Frances Richards became the new editor of Advanced Materials & Processes, and Dad immediately pitched his writing ideas to her. She readily accepted them, and the Metallurgy Lane article series was born. Writing for the magazine and later this book became our father s purpose in life, his legacy. He came alive as he received s from Karen Marken and ix

10 x Frances Richards, his patient and understanding editors, and his readers, who hailed from all around the world. He raced life s clock to finish this book. We are sad that he will not be able to hold it in his hands, but grateful that he won that race. Robert Simcoe Joyce Simcoe Simutis Thomas Simcoe April 2017 William Simcoe Richard Simcoe Janice Simcoe

11 Charles R. Simcoe Edited by Frances Richards Copyright 2018 ASM International All rights reserved Preface It was my intention, for many years, to write on the history of the development of modern technology from the viewpoint of the structural metals used to build our 21st century world. I started this work more than 30 years ago. Many times I have picked it up for a while and then laid it down to do more pressing things connected with earning a living. In addition, I have felt along the way that the subject matter is so vast and that other workers in the field were so much more qualified to perform the task that I was willing to defer to them. However, no one came forward to do the work. In the meantime, a whole generation of metals workers who might have written a more comprehensive history, a more knowledgeable history, indeed a more elegant history have passed from the scene. So, I take up the challenge of presenting the history of the development of metals as both an industrial activity and a science, which made possible the present world of land, air, and space travel; of chemical production in rustresistant plants; of buildings reaching over 100 stories high; of welded ships that can cruise for months at a time on nuclear power; and many other engineering accomplishments that the average reader takes for granted. The past 100 years have been ones which indeed could be called a second industrial revolution, or more accurately a technological revolution. The industrial revolution was based on steam power. This technological revolution involves electricity, oil, and nuclear power combined with developments in transportation, communications, manufacturing advances, and general consumer needs. Nearly every major technical advance, however, has been accompanied or preceded by the development of a new metal or alloy or a breakthrough in the use of an existing one. xi

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13 Charles R. Simcoe Edited by Frances Richards Copyright 2018 ASM International All rights reserved About the Author Charles Robert Bob Simcoe became a member of ASM International, formerly the American Society for Metals, in He attended The Ohio State University and graduated from Purdue University with a degree in metallurgical engineering in Simcoe became interested in the field while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II and taking a course in welding and metallurgy during his service. After graduation, his first job was with Westinghouse Atomic Power Division in Pittsburgh, where he studied zirconium, the structural metal for the atomic reactor in the USS Nautilus submarine. After two years, he began work at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. He focused on alloy steels and hydrogen in steel and titanium. In 1958, he began work for the Armour Research Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. He directed a team working on titanium, aluminum, alloy steels, columbium, and other alloys. In 1964, he moved to Lockport, New York, to work for Simonds Saw and Steel. It was here that he worked as an assistant laboratory director, materials manager, and vice president of sales and marketing until he retired in During his retirement, he consulted with various businesses and worked for Curtiss-Wright in Buffalo, New York. He also taught the metallurgy lab at the State University of New York at Buffalo for six years. During his career, Simcoe wrote articles for Transactions of the ASM, The National Metalworking Weekly, a publication of Centre D Information Du Cobalt (Brussels), Mechanical Engineering, and the Journal of Metals. He also wrote more than 40 articles for ASM International s Advanced Materials & Processes magazine, which became the basis for this book. xiii