De Réaumur à la Première Guerre Mondiale : les étapes de la maîtrise de l’acier, l’essor des aciers spéciaux

Abstract: After a brief survey of the history of steel-making we shall concentrate on the period extending from Réaumur''s work on that topic (1722) until World War one. Those two centuries saw the transition from empirical steel production processes to industrial steel manufacturing. We shall see how problems linked to the quenching and cementation of steel caused both scientists and steel manufacturers to develop efficient research leading to the establishment of an authentic metal science around 1900. These scientific discoveries then contributed to the prodigious development of special steel. Originally produced empirically to fulfill military requirements, these new types of material were to answer the needs of emerging industries, such as electrical engineering, as well as car manufacturing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]