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ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES •
JULY 2014
34
C
arbon is the single most potent element
added to iron, even though it is not
thought of as an
alloy
because the word
“steel” is defined as carbon in iron. Amounts as
small as 0.05% have profound effects on the behav-
ior of iron, and 0.15 to 0.25% additions are suffi-
cient to make mild structural steel. Most heat
treated alloy steels contain 0.30 to 0.40% C. Carbon
has two characteristics that account for its power-
ful effects from such small amounts: It is very low
in density, so therefore a great number of atoms are
present in small amounts (by weight), and its atoms
are smaller than iron atoms, so they do not substi-
tute for iron in the crystal lattice, but take up a
unique position in the holes between the iron
atoms. It is this interstitial position of carbon atoms
in the iron lattice—along with the crystal lattice
transformation from face centered cubic (fcc) to
body centered cubic (bcc) on cooling—that makes
steel such a marvelous material for construction,
power transmission, and tools in the modern era.
The first alloy steel contained chromium and
was patented in 1865 by American metallurgist
Julius Baur and manufactured by the Chrome Steel
Co. of Brooklyn, N.Y.
This alloy steel was
never successful, but the
publicity prompted an
interest in chromium
alloy steels by French
metallurgist Henri-Ami
Brustlein. He soon
learned that to alloy
chromium with steel,
the
chromium
ore
needed to be refined to
produce a master alloy
of iron-chromium-car-
bon. This master alloy
would readily dissolve
into the melt of the cru-
cible process, otherwise the recovery of
chromium would be too erratic to control the
alloy content. Brustlein produced and sold
chromium alloy steels for tools, cannon shells,
and armor plate over a period of about 15 to 20
years before anyone else entered the field. For his
work in developing alloy steel and related heat
treatments and applications, Brustlein deserves
to be called the Father of Alloy Steels.
Nickel steel development
While Brustlein was developing chromium
steels, other French metallurgists were learning
to smelt nickel-containing ore from New Cale-
donia, a French territory in the South Pacific.
The resulting ferronickel was then used to add
nickel to steel. The production of nickel steel was
observed in France in 1888 by James Riley, an
Englishman who made arrangements for similar
steels to be made at The Steel Company of Scot-
land in 1889. He immediately tested these steels
and reported their properties in the
Journal of
the Iron and Steel Institute.
One of his steels con-
taining roughly 0.2% C and 5% Ni developed
strength properties of considerable interest for
many different structural and machine applica-
tions. This steel, processed by rolling and an-
nealing, was about 40% stronger than similar
steel without nickel.
The first alloy steel employed in regular indus-
trial production in the U.S. was 5% nickel steel,
used for bicycle chains (1898), followed the next
year by bicycle tubing. The first use of alloy steel in
the emerging automotive industry was a 5% nickel
steel axle by Haynes and Apperson. Somewhat
later, nickel steels (3.5%) became popular for the
structural components of large bridges, including
the Manhattan and Queensboro Bridges in New
York City. In 1900, about 3000 tons of alloy steel
were produced in the U.S.
Shortly after nickel steels came into use, more
complex alloy steels containing both chromium
and nickel were being tested by Krupp in Germany
and by the Compagnie des Forges de la Marine in
France. These nickel-chromium steels could be
hardened in large sections by heat treating so they
became very popular for armor and large forgings.
After the turn of the century, the straight nickel
steels rapidly declined in use in favor of the nickel-
chromium steels and the newly developed
chromium-vanadium steels.
Metallurgy Lane,
authored by
ASM life member
Charles R. Simcoe
,
is a yearlong series
dedicated to the early
history of the U.S. metals
and materials industries
along with key
milestones and
developments.
The History of Alloy Steels: Part I
The widespread use of alloy steels beginning in the early 1900s spurred
the need to acquire and share information about heat treating,
which previously had been a guarded art.
The first use of alloy
steel in the U.S. was for
the axle of the famous
Ferris Wheel at the 1893
Chicago World’s Fair.
Courtesy of Library of
Congress.