Metallurgical Design and Industry: Prehistory to the Space Age

390 Pages·2018·17.594 MB·English

by  Brett Kaufman, Clyde L. Briant

Brett Kaufman · Clyde L. Briant Editors
Metallurgical
Design and
Industry
Prehistory to the Space Age
Metallurgical Design and Industry
Brett Kaufman • Clyde L. Briant
Editors
Metallurgical Design
and Industry
Prehistory to the Space Age
Editors
Brett Kaufman Clyde L. Briant
Department of the Classics School of Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Brown University
Urbana, IL, USA Providence, RI, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-93754-0 ISBN 978-3-319-93755-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93755-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954736
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Preface
This volume was conceived by a metallurgical engineer (Briant) and a metallurgical
archaeologist (Kaufman) following many conversations and joint lectures given to
students. We felt that there exists a conceptual arc of connectivity between metal-
lurgical innovations since prehistory, which can best be described as a design pro-
cess that evolves, grows, and changes from generation to generation of smiths and
engineers. The material and physical constraints for metal manufacture that both
confound technological advancements and, once their principles are discovered
through experimentation, allow for the next wave of innovations are a part of the
design process just as much as the cultural and societal tastes and taboos that guide
and limit designers as they seek an audience and market for their products.
The chapters herein examine cutting-edge metallurgical technologies and their
places in societies through the centuries and millennia. Specific but broad case stud-
ies authored by scientists with first-hand industry and/or academic experience make
up a major portion of the book. A primary reason for including these studies is to
guide materials scientists and engineers to understand the importance of designing
their research and inventions with broad societal impacts in mind. The contributions
of leading scholars in the world of modern and ancient metallurgy illustrates how
innovative engineering design is best constructed through creative materials science
and engineering applications that are based on the knowledge of both material prop-
erties and economic analysis, while simultaneously envisioning their concepts in
their cultural and communal contexts. As a result, the book encourages a design
process that emphasizes the anticipation of social tastes and, as such, enriches the
historical and anthropological understanding of human technological behavior,
while assisting scientists in conceptualizing the relevance and potential acceptance
of their discoveries in industry and by society.
Humans are dependent on physical materials to execute their visions of culture
and society. More than other material types, innovations in the realm of metallic
alloys have set the pace both for human interrelationships and the manipulation of
their environments for thousands of years. The exploitation of raw mineral resources
and fabrication of engineered alloys embody and symbolize the technological acu-
men that humans have evolved to possess. Individuals and cultures depend on
v
vi Preface
metals of all types for the functioning of society, from lubricating the gears of econ-
omy with metal coinage and surplus, to increasing the speed of mobility through
terrestrial and aerospace applications and the speed of information through electric-
ity and electronics.
The following chapters therefore offer technical explanations for the designs and
products of a variety of industries, while historic portraits of the major players and
innovators offer a lens into the personal sides of some of the most ambitious engi-
neering endeavors, all situated within a societal context. Kaufman draws from eco-
nomic anthropology, design theory, and archaeometallurgy to provide a survey of
non-ferrous, precious, and ferrous metallurgical traditions, from prehistory to the
nineteenth century. He synthesizes the physical and aesthetic properties of alloys
within their social use contexts in the Old and New Worlds, commonalities between
prehistoric, historic, and modern industrial development, and the risks to public
health and ecological fallout. Walley introduces the historical context of heavy
armour and ballistics before engaging with the experimentation and utility of these
technologies in naval warfare. He concludes with the legacy of armament prolifera-
tion leading into the era of the World Wars. Gordon offers an extensive look into the
recent history of mining and economic geology. He highlights the legacy and ever-
growing risks of metallurgical pollution – disasters and mass destruction are becom-
ing more commonplace at both old and active mining sites, and innovations are
needed to contain this hazardous waste, in addition to heightened social and corpo-
rate responsibility. The intersection of railroad, settlement expansion, and resource
acquisition in the American nineteenth and twentieth centuries is interwoven within
economic and design contexts to explain the modern (and future) global market of
metal commodities. Ono fuses Chinese, Japanese, and English language scholarship
to track structural metallurgy from the perspective of bridge building in an over-
arching technological-historical perspective ranging from the earliest bridges until
the mega-bridges of today. Technical appraisals of catastrophic bridge failures attest
to the ongoing fragility of the industrial endeavor. Kumar and Padture outline the
history of aviation before engaging with specifications of the jet engine, propulsion
systems, and other aircraft components. They present the development and capaci-
ties of aluminum and titanium alloys as well as nickel-based superalloys and poly-
mer matrix composites used for aerospace applications. They also point out the
important role that coatings have played in allowing aircraft engines to run at higher
and higher temperatures. Briant focuses on the catastrophic failure of alloyed steel
steam turbines that generate electricity for the grid. He illustrates how what may
seem to be an obvious solution to a technical problem may later be shown not to
have been the root cause of the problem at all. To describe the process by which a
solution is reached, he details the concept of technology interaction spheres which
facilitate communication and knowledge-sharing mechanisms that tap into market
forces, professional organizations, communities of specialists, workers, etc. that can
be used to come up with solutions to fundamental technological problems. He also
mentions the importance of archiving information, lest it be lost once a problem is
solved. In turn, this volume in part serves to attempt the preservation of t echnological
Preface vii
and metallurgical knowledge from various eras and in specific applications, at least
as much as is possible via the written word as opposed to physical practice.
Of course, there are many other metallurgy applications not covered in much
detail – biomedical and dental applications, furnace structure, nanometallurgy, and
infrastructure of biomass and nuclear plants; the list could go on to touch on almost
any industrial or artistic field. Metallurgy is one of the most permeating technolo-
gies, and research is constantly developing, while the global centers of metallurgical
industry and personnel are constantly shifting based on regional production,
resources, and demands. What remains constant are the properties of the metals
themselves, which is a materials science issue, as well as the design principles
underpinning production and industry, which is a social process.
Some chapters contain an acknowledgments section that the authors have used to
give thanks where it is due. However, this book itself would not have been possible
without the concerted and patient efforts of the publishing team at Springer.
Specifically, the editors wish to extend sincere thanks to Brinda Megasyamalan,
Brian Halm, Anita Lekhwani, Faith Pilacik, Ania Levinson, Sharmila Sasikumar,
and Charles Glaser.
Urbana, IL, USA Brett Kaufman
Providence, RI, USA Clyde L. Briant
Contents
1 Anthropology of Metallurgical Design: A Survey
of Metallurgical Traditions from Hominin Evolution
to the Industrial Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Brett Kaufman
2 The Beginnings of the Use of Iron and Steel in Heavy Armour . . . . . 71
Stephen M. Walley
3 Transformative Innovation in Mining and Metallurgy . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Robert Gordon
4 Structural Materials: Metallurgy of Bridges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Kanji Ono
5 Materials in the Aircraft Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Sharvan Kumar and Nitin P. Padture
6 The Development of Clean Steels for Steam Turbine
Applications: Their Demand and Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Clyde L. Briant
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
ix
About the Authors
Clyde L. Briant is a professor in the School of Engineering at Brown University.

From 1976 to 1994, he was a staff metallurgist at the General Electric Company
Corporate Research and Development Center in Schenectady, New York. He joined
Brown in 1994. He was dean of engineering at Brown from 2003 to 2006 and vice
president for research from 2006 to 2013. His primary research activities have been
in the field of mechanical properties and microstructures of metallic materials, and
he is currently studying the history of technology, particularly the development of
the steam turbine industry. He is a fellow of both ASM International and TMS and
is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Robert  Gordon is senior research scientist and professor emeritus at Yale

University, where he taught courses on mineral physics and on energy, water, and
mineral resources. While regents’ fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, he began a
study of historical metallurgy that led to his book, American Iron, to field work at
smelting sites in the Adirondacks, and in the laboratory, to exploration of the phys-
ics and chemistry of traditional smelting processes, the techniques used by metal-
working artisans in pre-Hispanic Peru and ancient Nubia, and the metallurgical
innovators in the early American republic. He collaborated with colleagues in geol-
ogy and economics in assessing the consequences of the declining grade of ore
minerals and with Thomas Graedel and his industrial ecology students modeling the
flow of metals from ore through use and on to recycling or landfill.
Brett Kaufman is an assistant professor in the Department of the Classics at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, joining the faculty in 2018. He gradu-
ated with a PhD in archaeology from the University of California, Los Angeles,
before holding a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, and an assistant pro-
fessorship at the University of Science and Technology Beijing where he maintains
an affiliation. His research focuses primarily on ancient, historic, and prehistoric science
and engineering with a particular specialty in metallurgy (archaeometallurgy), the
archaeology and history of the Mediterranean and Near East, and reconstructing the
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xii About the Authors
management strategies of past societies facing environmental change and resource
shortages. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the
National Geographic Society, and the National Natural Science Foundation of
China.
Sharvan Kumar is professor in the School of Engineering at Brown University.

He received his bachelor of technology degree in metallurgy from the Indian
Institute of Technology Madras (1979) and his MS and PhD in materials science
and engineering from Drexel University (1981, 1984). He worked at Martin Marietta
Laboratories in Baltimore, Maryland (1985–1994), focusing on aerospace materi-
als, including coinventing a family of aluminum-copper-lithium alloys used to con-
struct the external fuel tanks for the US space shuttles. He joined Brown University
in 1995 and has since pursued his research interests in structural materials including
intermetallic compounds, high-strength steels, refractory alloys, and shape memory
alloys. His contributions have earned him the Maryland Distinguished Young
Scientist Award (1994), Best Symposium Paper Award twice (1993, 2001) at the
First and Third International Symposium on Structural Intermetallics, fellow of
the American Society for Materials International (2003), the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science Fellowship (2009), and the Alexander von Humboldt Award
(2015).
Kanji Ono received a BE from Tokyo Institute of Technology, and a PhD in mate-

rials science from Northwestern University. After a year of postdoctoral research at
Northwestern, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles,
where he became professor of engineering in 1976 and professor emeritus in 2005.
He was awarded the HM Howe Medal by ASM International, the Achievement
Award by ASNT, the Gold Medal Award by AEWG, and the Kishinoue Award by
JSNDI. He is the author of more than 250 publications in materials science, acoustic
emission, and non-destructive testing and was the founding editor of Journal of
Acoustic Emission. His areas of research have included physical metallurgy, strength
and fracture of metallic and composite materials, non-destructive testing, and physi-
cal acoustics.
Nitin P. Padture is the Otis E. Randall university professor of engineering and

director of the Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation at Brown University.
He received his BTech in metallurgical engineering from the Indian Institute of
Technology Bombay (1985), MS in ceramic engineering from Alfred University
(1987), and PhD in materials science and engineering from Lehigh University
(1991). Prior to joining Brown University in 2012, he was College of Engineering
distinguished professor and founding director of the NSF-funded Materials Research
Science & Engineering Center at the Ohio State University. Padture’s research inter-
ests are in the broad areas of advanced structural ceramics/coatings/composites and
functional nanomaterials/devices, with applications ranging from jet engines to
nanoelectronics to solar cells. He is author or coauthor of over 200 publications,
which have been cited widely. A fellow of the American Association for the