You may give little thought to your beautiful stainless steel appliance or other marvel of technology, but this metal is relatively new. Unlike steel (which is over 2000 years old) processes like stainless steel annealing and fabrication are a product of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. In fact, many people believe this amazing alloy came from the mind of Harry Brearly, but in fact, it took years of innovations and development to produce. Here is a brief look back on stainless steel, and from whence it came.
1820s
Men like Farraday and Stoddard worked with alloys containing chromium and iron and were concerned about its lack of ability to resist some types of acids. These studies reached a stalemate eventually because they did not have a practical way to raise the chromium content of the alloy.
1870s
Two men in England names Clark and Wood came up with a corrosion resistant steel alloy containing 30 percent chromium and also added tungsten. They even filed for a patent on the metal and this became the forerunner of stainless steel. A few years later, a man named Brustlein from France wrote about the importance of keeping the carbon content low in the steel. This would eventually make processes like modern stainless steel annealing (heat treatment) possible. However, for about 20 years or so, an effective low carbon steel alloy was not produced.
Turn of the 20th Century
In 1895, a German named Goldschmidt developed a special method for producing chromium without any carbon content. This set the stage for the development of today’s stainless steel. In fact, it sparked a great deal of research and progress on chromium iron alloys for several years.
Around 1911, the importance of chromium as an anticorrosive alloy was discovered. Two men from Germany (Monnartz and Borchers) published their findings and claimed resistance to corrosion increased significantly when chromium levels were greater than 10 and one half percent.
Two years later, Harry Brearly was working for an arms manufacturer client on the problem of gun barrel erosion and came up with a viable solution. So in essence, stainless steel came into being as an anti erosion, not anti corrosive metal. Brearly experimented with many different percentages until he developed an alloy with nearly 13 percent chromium and carbon levels under one fourth of one percent.
Brearly’s employer did not take him seriously when he discovered an alloy which was resistant to chemicals and corrosion. He eventually took his discovery to a friend who happened to be in the cutlery business. Before long, rustless knife blades were on the market and processes like modern stainless steel annealing and hardening were in the wind. Today our lives are greatly enhanced thanks to this special metal and all the men who made it possible.