Bessemer is from Hertfordshire, England. She was born in Charlton, England on June 18 13+ 10/9. Not far from London, the economy is relatively developed. During the industrial revolution, the machine industry developed rapidly in the southeast of England with London as the center. Bessemer lives in this area and has been influenced by industrial production since childhood.
Bessemer's father was originally from France. After the French Revolution broke out, he moved to England to settle down. There are different views on his father in the book. Some people say that he is an inventor, some people say that he is an engineer, and some people say that he is a factory owner. Anyway, there is no doubt that his father is familiar with engineering technology.
It is precisely because of living in such a family that Bessemer has the favorable conditions for receiving technical education since childhood. Bessemer didn't receive much education all his life, only went to primary school. His later knowledge was taught by himself through practice. Bessemer's father runs a factory, and his father's factory is the school where he studies technology. There were many inventions in his life, and most of the skills and knowledge needed to complete these inventions were learned in his father's factory.
Bessemer is naturally smart and likes to use his head. Even when he was very young, he showed a gift for invention and creation. /kloc-when he was 0/8 years old, he left his hometown and went to London alone to seek a career and live independently. At this time, Britain's industrial revolution has entered the stage of completion, and various scientific and technological inventions are constantly emerging. This era environment provides Bessemer with an opportunity to show his talents. It is said that he has made many inventions while working in London.
When he was less than 20 years old, he invented a mechanical stamping method, which can automatically stamp stamps with postmarks. His invention caught the attention of the British government and was quickly adopted. Because of the use of this machine, not only the post office staff have reduced a lot of troubles, but the government can also save 500 thousand pounds in economic losses every year. However, the British government did not reward him for this. Many people think that he is just a young man, and the invention doesn't look complicated, so there is no need to reward him. This incident is a great stimulus to Bessemer, and he will never forget it. Since then, when he is engaged in various inventions, he always tries his best to obtain patent certificates to protect his rights and interests.
Bessemer also invented a machine for making copper powder. Copper powder, commonly known as "gold powder", is a kind of golden pigment made of copper, zinc alloy and brass. Copper powder is very expensive in the market because of its wide use and time-consuming processing and manufacturing. Knowing this situation, Bessemer decided to improve the method of manufacturing copper powder at that time.
On the one hand, he delved into relevant technical books, on the other hand, he conducted research and experiments and invented a simple machine for manufacturing copper powder. But the copper powder produced by this machine at first is neither smooth nor dull, which is far from the copper powder sold in the market. So, he made many improvements to this machine and finally made a machine with perfect performance. The copper powder produced by Bessemer with this machine has completely reached the quality of similar products sold in the market.
After Bessemer invented the copper powder making machine, in order not to let the outside world know, he didn't immediately apply for a patent right, but hid at home to make copper powder himself. Bessemer's idea at the moment is that using this machine to make copper powder for sale will earn huge income; Then use the money as funds to engage in research and manufacturing in order to make more inventions. His practices and ideas are understandable.
In addition to the above two inventions, Bessemer also made some improvements to the typesetting machine. He also studied the glass manufacturing process, improved it, and put forward a new manufacturing method. For bronze alloys, he also conducted more research. Bronze can be cast to produce general mechanical parts and works of art, and can also be calendered to make various semi-finished products such as plates, bars and pipes. After research, Bessemer has made many improvements on the calendering process of bronze sheets, which has been recognized by people.
/kloc-In the early 1950s of 0/9, a war broke out between Russia and Turkey, which soon spread to the whole Crimea, known as the Crimean War. Then the anglo-French alliance got involved. 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia and sent troops to Crimea. The attention of Britain turned to this war, and Bessemer was no exception. He really wants to do something for the war.
First of all, he improved the weapons in the hands of soldiers and invented a new type of rifle, called rifle. This rifle bore is engraved with many lines, and the bullets it shoots move forward in a rotating way, and the trajectory is relatively stable. Shooting with this rifle not only has a long range, but also has a high hit rate. The experimental results show that rifle is an excellent infantry fighting weapon.
After inventing the rifle, he turned his attention to the cannon. The artillery used by soldiers at that time was not very good. After the projectile is discharged, it often rolls in the air because of air resistance and other factors, which can not maintain a stable trajectory, thus affecting the shooting accuracy. Bessemer is good at mechanical technology, and he decided to use his wisdom to help the country solve this problem.
We know from physics that when a rotating object is moving, it will remain stable along the axis of rotation. If the bullet can rotate around the flight direction during the flight, it will avoid rolling and maintain a stable trajectory. According to this principle, Bessemer invented the rifle, and the effect was very good. Now, he will follow this idea and make a compound gun.
So, how can we make the shell rotate during flight? Of course, like a rifle, it is necessary to carve double lines on the gun bore, and the shells should be closely matched with the gun bore, so that when the gunpowder burns, it will push the shells to move along the double lines and the shells will naturally rotate. With this kind of shell, the cannon can hit farther and more accurately.
According to this idea, Bessemer designed a new type of cannon. He submitted the design to the British War Department with great interest.
To Bessemer's disappointment, the British War Department was quite conservative and was not interested in his invention. So he thought of France. On the one hand, France was an ally of Britain at that time; On the other hand, he himself is a descendant of the French, and his father immigrated to Britain when the French Revolution broke out. Therefore, he has a strong sense of closeness to France from the heart. In this way, Bessemer came to France with his design.
Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte, who ruled France, was interested in his design and encouraged him to do experiments. As a result of the experiment, this new cannon is really accurate and has a long range. As a result, this kind of gun was quickly used to equip troops. But before long, problems followed: sometimes the shells were not strong enough after being launched, and sometimes the guns jammed. Later, there were several major accidents in which guns exploded and gunmen were killed or injured. The new artillery didn't kill the enemy, but wiped out those who used weapons. The military had to withdraw guns from the battlefield. At that time, people talked about the new guns in succession, and they also had doubts about Bessemer.
Bessemer is under great pressure, but he believes that his design is correct. At the request of him and relevant parties, the military conducted a serious investigation into these accidents.
The investigation report will come out soon. With the intervention of French artillery experts, the investigation report correctly analyzed the cause of the accident: at that time, France, like other countries, all cannons were cast iron. The gun bore cast by this method is irregular and it is difficult to meet the requirements of double-track gun bore. The key of the new gun lies in strict requirements on the gap between the gun bore and the shell: when the gap between the shell and the gun bore is too large, the gas after the explosive powder will leak out, resulting in insufficient rotating force of the projectile and little effectiveness; When the gap between the shell and the gun bore is small, the pressure in the gun bore increases sharply due to the explosion of gunpowder, and the temperature distribution inside and outside the gun bore is uneven, while the toughness of cast iron itself is not enough to withstand high pressure, which easily leads to the explosion of the gun bore. So the problem lies in the material used for casting guns. If we can make hard and tough iron that can withstand high pressure, the new gun will be fine.
Although the investigation report has been published, people are still worried about the accident caused by Bessemer cannon, and no one dares to manufacture the cannon according to his design. The new gun he worked so hard to develop soon became a pile of useless scrap iron.
Intriguingly, Britain and France did not adopt the new artillery designed by Bessemer, but his design idea was accepted by the Germans. 1855 At the World Expo held in Paris, German engineer Krupp exhibited the steel rifle that Bessemer dreamed of. As a result of the artillery test, 3000 shells were fired and the gun body was safe and sound. Facts have proved that Bessemer's design is completely correct.
In the face of French setbacks, Bessemer was not discouraged. He thought that as long as the material barrier was broken, the new artillery could be brought back to life. Therefore, he began to turn his attention to smelting and made up his mind to extract high-strength iron to completely solve the problem of new gun blasting.
The hard and tough iron that Bessemer wants to smelt is actually steel. But at that time, he knew nothing about smelting iron, so he learned it from scratch. First of all, learn from the basic knowledge of iron smelting. In a short period of two or three years, Bessemer has read almost all the books on metallurgical problems. At the same time, he also visited the iron-making factories all over Britain, and inspected the iron-making methods at that time in detail. In order to combine the theoretical knowledge in books with the practice of steel production, he also set up a factory to carry out experiments. After studying hard, he finally mastered the basic knowledge of smelting iron.
In the era of Bessemer experiment, there were basically only two kinds of iron used in manufacturing. One is cast iron, which is pig iron. It has high carbon content and is hard, but it is also brittle and has low tensile strength. It is mainly used for casting engine cylinders, frames and other products after smelting. Pig iron is hard and brittle and easily broken, which is one of its main defects. The new cannon designed by Bessemer is made of pig iron.
The other is forged iron, which has much greater tensile strength and elasticity. Because wrought iron is soft, rails, hulls, bridges and various machine parts can be made by forging, pressing and other molding methods. This kind of iron is easy to deform under high pressure because of its soft texture, so its use is also greatly limited.
The iron directly produced by the ironmaking furnace is pig iron, and the carbon content of pig iron is very high, above 2%. Try to remove the carbon contained in pig iron to get wrought iron. The carbon content of wrought iron is generally below 0.04%. The carbon content between them is steel. Compared with pig iron and wrought iron, steel has excellent properties, both hardness and toughness. But at that time, steel was difficult to manufacture, so it was very expensive and was regarded as a precious metal. It is obviously unrealistic to use it to cast guns. Of course, if we can find a cheap and fast steelmaking method, it is another matter. Now, what Bessemer has done is to find this way.
The traditional steelmaking method is to first convert pig iron into wrought iron, and then add a proper amount of carbon to make steel. In order to change pig iron into wrought iron, oxidation method was adopted at that time, that is, oxidant (usually iron ore) was added to pig iron and heated to make it in a molten state. At this time, the carbon in the molten pig iron will react with the oxidant and be removed.
Bessemer carefully studied the method of changing pig iron into wrought iron. He added carefully weighed iron ore to pig iron, and then heated the mixture to make it melt. The main component of iron ore is iron oxide. At high temperature, oxygen atoms in iron oxide combine with carbon atoms in pig iron to generate carbon monoxide, which is further burned to escape as carbon dioxide. At this time, all that is left in the furnace is wrought iron.
According to the experimental results, Bessemer thought: Since carbon atoms in pig iron can be oxidized to obtain wrought iron, why can't carbon be burned by other oxidation methods? For example, a blower directly blows air into molten pig iron, so that oxygen in the air reacts with carbon atoms in molten pig iron to decarbonize it, thus obtaining wrought iron.
Bessemer's suggestion met with opposition from some experts. These experts believe that when molten pig iron is blown by a blower, the cold air blown in will cool and solidify the molten iron, which will lead to the stop of the whole smelting process.
Bessemer didn't blindly listen to experts' opinions. Whether he thinks his suggestion is feasible depends on experiments. The experimental result is contrary to the expert's opinion. The blowing wind not only did not cool the molten iron, but increased the temperature of the molten iron, because the oxygen atoms in it reacted with the carbon in pig iron to release heat.
In the first experiment, when the blower blew the molten pig iron, it suddenly burned in the already calm iron smelting furnace, and the reaction was extremely intense and almost out of control. This made him very nervous. He didn't expect that carbon and other impurities in molten iron would release so much heat when they were oxidized. Fortunately, this process only lasted for ten minutes. After the oxidation, he was relieved. Experiments show that the blast method does not need additional fuel, reduces the cost and is simple and easy to operate. This is indeed a good method of pig iron maintenance.
With the deepening of the experiment, Bessel further thought that in the process of pig iron curing, if the reaction is stopped at an appropriate time, the carbon in pig iron is not completely removed, but kept within the range of 2% ~ 0.04%, and steel can be directly obtained. There is no need to extract wrought iron from pig iron first, and then obtain steel through wrought iron stage, as in the traditional method. Of course, there is no need to spend a lot of money on fuel in these intermediate processes.
In order to verify the feasibility of this idea, he built a fixed melting furnace in his factory in St. Pancris, London. The furnace is about1.2m high and can hold 350kg pig iron. There are six tuyeres at the bottom of the stove. Bessel did a serious experiment with it, and the experimental results proved that his idea was completely feasible. So,1August, 856, he gave a report entitled "Method of making wrought iron and steel without fuel" at the annual meeting of the South British Association for the Advancement of Science in Cheltenham, introduced his steelmaking method, and sent the carefully written paper to the magazine for publication. Since then, his blast steelmaking method has been officially announced to the world. 1860, the first improved mobile converter was built and put into operation. People generally call this kind of furnace "Bessemer converter". Because acidic materials are used as furnace lining, this steelmaking method is also called "acid bottom-blown converter steelmaking method".