Wrought iron is a low-carbon iron alloy, worked while hot and hammered or rolled to squeeze out most of its slag, leaving a fibrous, layered internal structure. Tougher and more ductile than the more brittle cast iron, and easily forge-welded, it was the principal structural and blacksmithing iron from antiquity through the nineteenth century, before the Bessemer and open-hearth processes made mild steel cheaper and displaced it almost entirely.
Facts
Disputed
Origin YearBloomery-smelted wrought iron is attested in the Near East and Anatolia from around the twelfth century BCE, marking the start of the Iron Age in the region. Primary UseOrnamental ironwork, chains and ships anchors, and, in the nineteenth century, structural beams and boiler plate, valued for toughness, ductility and ease of forge welding, before steel displaced it. 1 Classification
Material Class Connections
Associated With
Cast Iron, Materials Wrought iron and cast iron are the two pre-steel iron materials, distinguished chiefly by carbon content and resulting brittleness.
Forging, Methods Wrought iron is worked and consolidated principally by forging and hammering, not casting.
Steel, Materials Wrought iron was the historical low-carbon predecessor to steel in structural use
Wrought iron was made by fining cast iron from the blast furnace
The Wheel, Inventions Celtic chariots added an iron rim around the wheel in the first millennium BCE, roughly two and a half millennia after the earliest wooden wheels.
Source Wheel (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
In Field
Sources
1. A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954material-class sentenceQuote, material-class sentence
Wrought iron is a low-carbon iron alloy, worked while hot and hammered or rolled to squeeze out most of its slag, leaving a fibrous, layered internal structure.
Wrought Iron (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWikipedia: Wrought iron, lead section, first paragraphQuote, Wikipedia: Wrought iron, lead section, first paragraph
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25% for low-carbon mild steel.
Wrought Iron (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationTerminology sectionQuote, Terminology section
Bar iron is a generic term sometimes used to distinguish it from cast iron.
Wheel (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: The Wheel, Materials sectionQuote, Associated With: The Wheel, Materials section
Celtic chariots introduced an iron rim around the wheel in the 1st millennium BCE.
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