Low-Alloy High-Strength Steels

Abstract

IT is significant that this symposium on alloy steels is being held in the year 1956 which marks the centenary of the birth of tonnage steel. It was exactly a hundred years ago that Henry Bessemer heralded it new era by making it possible to produce steel for the first time in commercial tonnages. The largest proportion of steel made and rolled today finds its way into, structural appli-cations such as the building of bridges, transport cars, etc. Therefore structural steel occupies a promin-ent place in the eyes of the metallurgist and the engineer. Although the manufacture of Bessemer steel was well established within a few years of its discovery, the general use of steel in building bridges and other struc-tural uses had to wait for several years. As late as 1877, a Board of Trade Regulation in England prohibited the use of mild steel in bridges. The Firth of Forth Bridge built during 1 2380-1 8 90 used for the first time steel in large quantities. The earliest use of mild steel for bridges in U.S.A. was in the Eads Bridge over the 'Mississippi river. Since then the use of mild steel for bridges has become almost universal.