An electric arc furnace is a furnace that heats material by passing an electric arc directly through it, used industrially to melt scrap and produce steel and to melt other metals in foundries, with industrial units ranging from about one tonne to roughly 400 tonnes in capacity and reaching temperatures of about 1,800 degrees Celsius. Vasily Vladimirovich Petrov demonstrated the possibility of arc melting in 1803 and Humphry Davy conducted further experimental demonstrations in 1810, but James Burgess Readman built the first successful operating electric arc furnace in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1888 and 1889, patented for phosphorus production; Paul Heroult established a commercial steelmaking plant using the technology in the United States in 1907. The electric arc furnace became a major method of steel production because it can run on scrap metal and be sited without reliance on coke or a blast furnace.
Facts
Disputed
Patent or First-Use DateYear-only precision. Tied to the Readman claim above, itself flagged failed verification on Wikipedia; recorded as the best dated patent found pending better sourcing. YearWikipedia's own article marks this Readman claim as failed verification. Paul Heroult's furnace, recorded as a second claim on this same key, carries the cleaner sourcing. YearSecond claim alongside the Readman 1888 and 1889 claim on this same key. Heroult's furnace reached commercial steelmaking use in the United States in 1907. SignificanceThe electric arc furnace let steelmakers build small mini mills at a fraction of the capital cost of an integrated steel mill. That low cost let new steelmaking capacity rise quickly in war damaged Europe and let mini mills compete directly with large established American steelmakers. 1 FAQs
Why is Paul Héroult linked to the electric arc furnace when James Readman built one earlier?
Héroult patented the scrap-and-graphite-electrode arc furnace in 1907, and steelmaking furnaces of this direct-arc design are called the Héroult type.
Readman built the first operating furnace in 1888, but Héroult is the name tied to the furnace design that steelmaking came to use. Encyclopedia.com's Dictionary of Scientific Biography entry says Héroult is considered the creator of the method used for preparing steels in the electric furnace. In 1907 he patented a furnace in which the arc was produced between the heated scrap iron and a graphite electrode. The same entry says there are many of these furnaces throughout the world, all of the Héroult type, and that the first direct-arc electric furnace installed in the United States was a Héroult furnace.
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Source Electric Arc Furnace (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Invented By
Source Paul Heroult (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Electric Arc Furnace (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationHistory section
The first successful and operational furnace was invented by James Burgess Readman in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1888 and patented in 1889.
Advantages for steelmaking section
allowed mills to be quickly established in war-ravaged Europe, and also allowed them to successfully compete with the big United States steelmakers
- In Group: Ferrous Metallurgy Processing Furnaces, lead sentence, 'heats material by means of an electric arc'
In Field: Materials Engineering, Lead section
An electric arc furnace (EAF) is a furnace that heats material by means of an electric arc.
View the Source 2. Paul Heroult (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLife and career section
Heroult's second most important contribution is the first commercially successful electric arc furnace (EAF) for steel in 1900.
Invented By: Paul Héroult, Lead section
He was one of the inventors of the Hall-Héroult process for smelting aluminium, and developed the first successful commercial electric arc furnace.
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