The Electro-Metallurgy of Steel

Abstract

WHAT are usually called electro-metallurgical processes of steel manufacture now constitute an applied science of considerable industrial importance. Strictly speaking, however, the processes are not electro-metallurgical since electrolysis is not an essential feature. Electrical energy is transformed into heat energy which is applied to the making and refining of steel of many types. The possibility of applying electrical energy in this way was first demonstrated by the late Sir William Siemens almost twenty years before its commercial possibilities were recognised by later investigators.. Prior to the outbreak of the late war the electric furnace had only a very limited application in steel metallurgy. Since then it has had a rapid and vast development, due partly to the shortage of high-grade raw materials, partly to the enormous demand for alloy steels, and partly to the need for utilising in some way the vast accumulation of heavy steel turnings. These conditions presented an exceptional opportunity for the electric furnace, and it was only then that its economic advantages in certain branches of steel-making were actually demonstrated. According to Mr. D. F. Campbell, who has written a preface to Mr. Gow's book, the electric furnace is now absorbing millions of electrical horse-power for various purposes and has produced more than a million tons of steels of various types.

The Electro-Metallurgy of Steel.

By C. C. Gow. (A Treatise of Electro-Chemistry. Edited by Bertram Blount.) Pp. xvi + 351. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1921.) 27s. 6d.