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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 6
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METALLURGY LANE
Metallurgy Lane, authored by ASM life member Charles R. Simcoe, is a continuing series dedicated to the early history of the U.S.
metals and materials industries along with key milestones and developments.
PIONEERS IN METALS RESEARCH—PART IV
EDGAR BAIN PIONEERED THE STUDY OF THE REACTION OF AUSTENITE TO LOWER TEMPERATURE PHASES
DURING ISOTHERMAL TRANSFORMATION, RESULTING IN A NEW PHASE NAMED IN HIS HONOR
—
BAINITE.
American metallurgist Edgar C. Bain, of
bainite fame. Courtesy of Library of
Congress.
A
fter finishing high school in Mar-
ion, Ohio, Edgar C. Bain enrolled
at The Ohio State University in
chemical engineering in 1908. His initial
interest inmetallography began in a class
where he saw photomicrographs of fer-
rite, pearlite, and martensite. Bain would
follow this field of science throughout his
career. His first job after graduation was
with the National Bureau of Standards in
Washington. Aftera fewyears, he returned
to Ohio State to work on an advanced
degree, where he took the only course
offered in metallography and metallurgy.
Before he earned his master’s degree, his
department head recommended him as
an instructor at the University of Wiscon-
sin teaching metallography and pyrome-
try. Due to his limited knowledge, he first
took a summer course in these subjects.
He selected the laboratory course at
Columbia University taught by William
Campbell and Henry Marion Howe.
He taught at Wisconsin for one
year, then accepted a research posi-
tion at the B.F. Goodrich Co. When the
U.S. entered WWI, Bain joined the army
where he worked in chemical warfare
research. After his discharge, he joined
General Electric’s National Lamp Works
where he worked under Zay Jeffries.
His first assignment was to investi-
gate the problem of failed dies of high-
speed steel during the wire drawing of
tungsten. He studied the mechanism of
secondary hardening, which was still a
mystery after 20 years of use. Bain and
Jeffries published their results in a fa-
mous paper on the “Red Hardness of
High-Speed Steel” in
Iron Age
magazine
in 1923. They combined the principles
of precipitation hardening by Paul Dyer
Merica with a mechanism of slip for
rows of atoms to slide past one another
for plastic deformation. The secondary
hardening they proposed was that the
formation of tungsten carbide at 1100°F
keyed the slip to increase the hardness.
Bain also studied the crystal struc-
ture of metal solid solutions using x-ray
diffraction, a new tool. Previous theory
taught by Howe at Columbia and Al-
bert Sauveur at Harvard stated there
were patches of crystal structure of the
solvent and other patches with the sol-
ute. Bain’s results for copper and zinc
(brass) showed for the first time that
the solute atoms of a different crystal
structure simply replaced solvent at-
oms at random without changing the
crystal structure.
After four years of working with
Jeffries at GE, Bain joined Atlas Steel in
Dunkirk, N.Y., where he worked on high-
speed and other alloy tool steels with
Marcus Grossmann. This was an espe-
cially productive time for Bain as he was
now pursuing a career studying transfor-
mation during steel heat treatment and
the effect of alloy additions. Alloy steels
were becoming ever more important
with the expanded production of auto-
mobiles and farm machinery, but un-
derstanding heat treatment and alloying
elements had made little progress.
In July 1924, Bain joined the Union
Carbide and Carbon Corp., a producer
of ferroalloys including ferrochromium.
During the summer of 1927, he took a
leave from his work and visited steel
plants, laboratories, and universities
in Europe with Grossmann. They met
with some early researchers who had
done the first studies on tool steels,
alloy steels, and the transformation of
austenite.
From left to right, Marcus Grossmann and
Edgar Bain of Atlas Steel Corp., Dunkirk,
N.Y., circa 1923. Courtesy of ASM.