Henry Bessemer, in full Sir Henry Bessemer, (born January 19, 1813, Charlton, Hertfordshire, England—died March 15, 1898, London), inventor and engineer who developed the primary course of for manufacturing metal inexpensively (1856), resulting in the event of the Bessemer converter. He was knighted in 1879.
Bessemer was the son of an engineer and typefounder. He early confirmed appreciable mechanical ability and ingenious powers. After the invention of movable stamps for relationship deeds and different authorities paperwork and the development of a typesetting machine, he went to the manufacture of “gold” powder from brass to be used in paints. The florid ornament of the time demanded nice portions of such materials, and Bessemer’s secret course of quickly introduced him nice wealth.
He developed different innovations, notably sugarcane-crushing equipment of superior design, however he was quickly dedicated to metallurgy. In his time there have been however two iron-based building supplies: forged iron made by the remedy of iron ore with coke within the blast furnace and wrought iron made out of forged iron in primitive furnaces by the laborious guide strategy of “puddling” (stirring the melted iron to take away carbon and raking off the slag). Cast iron was wonderful for load-bearing functions, reminiscent of columns or bridge piers, and for engine components, however for girders and different spans, and notably for rails, solely wrought iron was appropriate. Puddling eliminated carbon, which makes forged iron brittle, and produced a cloth that might be rolled or solid, however solely in “blooms,” or massive lumps of 100–200 kilos, and that was stuffed with slag. The blooms needed to be laboriously solid collectively by steam hammers earlier than they might be rolled to any helpful size or form. The solely materials often known as metal was made by including carbon to pure types of wrought iron, additionally by gradual and discontinuous strategies; the fabric was exhausting, would take an edge, and was used virtually completely for reducing instruments.
During the Crimean War, Bessemer invented an elongated artillery shell that was rotated by the powder gases. The French authorities with whom he was negotiating, nonetheless, identified that their cast-iron cannon wouldn't be robust sufficient for this type of shell. He thereupon tried to supply a stronger forged iron. In his experiments he found that the surplus oxygen within the sizzling gases of his furnace appeared to have eliminated the carbon from the iron pigs that had been being preheated—a lot because the carbon is eliminated in a puddling furnace—leaving a pores and skin of pure iron. Bessemer then discovered that blowing air via melted forged iron not solely purified the iron but in addition heated it additional, permitting the purified iron to be simply poured. This heating impact is brought on by the response of oxygen with the carbon and silicon within the iron. Utilizing these new methods, which later grew to become often known as the Bessemer course of, he was quickly capable of produce massive, slag-free ingots as workable as any wrought-iron bloom, and much bigger; he invented the tilting converter into which molten pig iron might be poured earlier than air was blown in from under. Eventually, with assistance from an iron-manganese alloy, which was developed at the moment by Robert Forester Mushet, Bessemer additionally discovered easy methods to take away extra oxygen from the decarburized iron.
His announcement of the method in 1856 earlier than the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, introduced many ironmasters to his door, and plenty of licenses had been granted. Very quickly, nonetheless, it grew to become clear that two components dangerous to iron, phosphorus and sulfur, weren't eliminated by the method—or at the least not by the fireclay lining of Bessemer’s converter. It was not till about 1877 that the British metallurgist Sidney Gilchrist Thomas developed a lining that eliminated phosphorus and made potential using phosphoric ores of the Continent.
Bessemer had, unknown to himself, been utilizing phosphorus-free iron, however the ironmasters weren't so fortunate. Their iron was completely passable for the puddling course of, wherein phosphorus is eliminated as a result of the temperatures are decrease, but it surely couldn't be used within the Bessemer course of. Bessemer was compelled to name in his licenses and discover a phosphorus-free supply of iron in northwestern England; thus he was capable of enter the metal market on his personal. Once the phosphorus downside was acknowledged and solved, he grew to become a licensor as soon as once more, and huge earnings flowed in. It grew to become clear that “mild steel”—because it was recognized to tell apart it from the exhausting device steels—might extra clearly and reliably be used instead of wrought iron for ship plate, girders, sheet, rods, wire, rivets, and different gadgets. The invention of the open-hearth (Siemens-Martin) course of within the late 1860s finally outstripped that of the Bessemer course of. This has now yielded place, in nice measure, to oxygen steelmaking, which is an extra growth and refinement of the Bessemer course of.
In his later years—the method had not turn into a transparent success till he was nearing 70—Bessemer continued to invent and make discoveries. The photo voltaic furnace he constructed was greater than a profitable toy; he designed and constructed an astronomical telescope for his personal amusement; and he developed a set of machines for sharpening diamonds that helped to reestablish that commerce in London.
Apart from his knighthood, he acquired many honours, such because the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Bessemer’s An Autobiography (1905), with a concluding chapter by his son, Henry Bessemer, is the one complete biography and the supply of most materials written about him since.