Metallurgical engineering studies the extraction of metals from ore and the working of those metals into a finished form with the properties an application needs, spanning the pyrometallurgy and electrometallurgy of primary extraction, alloy design, and the casting, forging and heat-treatment processes that set a metal's final grain structure and strength. The production of ferrous metals accounts for about ninety-five percent of world metal production, with non-ferrous metallurgy covering every other metal and alloy system. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Origin YearMarks the founding of Columbia University's School of Mines in 1864, among the earliest dedicated US mining and metallurgy engineering programs, as the point the practice formalized into an academic engineering discipline; metalworking itself is millennia older. Core ConcernFreeing metal from ore and controlling its internal structure, through smelting, alloying, casting, forging and heat treatment, to obtain the strength, hardness or ductility a specific use requires. 1 Core PrincipleFree metal from ore and control its internal grain structure through smelting, alloying, casting, forging and heat treatment to obtain the strength, hardness or ductility a specific use requires. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Amorphous Metal (Wikipedia)
Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
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Quenching, Methods Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Rolling, Methods Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Tempering, Methods Field end of a technology member entity grouped under this field
Includes
Source Adolf Martens (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Anodizing (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Galvanization (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Henry Bessemer (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Source Henry Clifton Sorby (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Open Questions
Source William Kelly (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Metallurgy (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy paragraph, production-share sentence
The production of ferrous metals accounts for 95% of world metal production.
View the Source Henry Bessemer (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Henry BessemerView the Source Henry Clifton Sorby (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Henry Clifton SorbyView the Source Adolf Martens (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Adolf MartensView the Source Amorphous Metal (Wikipedia)
WikipediaAssociated With: Amorphous Metal, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Amorphous Metal, Lead section
Batches of amorphous steel with three times the strength of conventional steel alloys have been produced.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Should Henry Bessemer or William Kelly be credited with inventing the pneumatic steelmaking process that founded modern metallurgical engineering, given that Kelly began experimenting before Bessemer filed his patent, yet went largely unrecognized?
Kelly experimented with injecting air into molten iron in the early 1850s, before Bessemer patented a similar process in 1855; after a financial panic in 1857, a company that had already licensed the Bessemer process purchased the Kelly patents outright and licensed both under the Bessemer name, and the documented record states that the role Kelly played in the invention has remained far less known.
What would resolve this A settled historical account weighing the timing of independent invention against the commercial and patent outcomes that decided which name attached to the process.
History of TechnologyWikipedia contributors, William Kelly (Wikipedia)
Frequently Asked Questions
Is metallurgical engineering a separate profession from materials engineering today?
The two are closely related and many university programs have merged them into a single materials science and engineering degree, but metallurgical engineering remains the name used for the specialization that focuses specifically on metals, freeing them from ore and controlling their internal grain structure through smelting, alloying, casting, forging and heat treatment. A metallurgical engineer typically works in mining, primary metal production or metal manufacturing, while a materials engineer more broadly might work with ceramics, polymers or composites instead.
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