2011

SK3588 : Kelham Island

taken 12 years ago, near to Sheffield, England

This is 1 of 2 images, with title Kelham Island in this square
Kelham Island
Kelham Island
The road, with the same name as the museum. The entrance to the museum is on the left, and is an excellent place to visit. Thanks to an anonymous viewer who has provided this additional information:- This is a Bessemer steel converter and is one of the last three left in the world. This invention by Henry Bessemer in 1856 enabled large quantities of iron to be easily converted to steel for the first time and it meant Sheffield and Britain took the lead in mass steel production. As such it is one of the most important inventions of Britain’s industrial past. This particular one worked at Workington Steel Works until 1978 before being brought here a few years later. In the process the vessel is tilted to the horizontal position where it is filled with molten iron from a blast furnace. At this stage the iron contains high levels of carbon and other impurities which would make the resulting metal very brittle. The vessel is then tilted back to the vertical position (as shown) and a blast of air is blown through the bath of molten iron from tubes in the base of the vessel. The oxygen in the air blast reacts with the impurities and burns them off in a spectacular “blow” which used to light up the night skies of Sheffield. This resulted in lower carbon and other impurities and the end result was good quality ductile steel instead of brittle cast iron. Seven tons of steel could be made in 30 minutes. By 1880 10,000 tons of Bessemer steel were produced in Sheffield every week. Prior to Bessemer’s invention only small quantities of steel had been able to be produced using the crucible process which produced about 15kg of steel in 3 hours. In that process the impurities are removed by flux instead of an air blast as in the Bessemer process.

Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright M J Richardson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Suburb, Urban fringe Educational sites Industry Place: Kelham Island other tags: Museum Bessemer Converter Steelmaking Click a tag, to view other nearby images.
This photo is linked from: Articles: · Images shortlisted for POTY, 2011 Galleries: · Selected tweets, Week 30 Automatic Clusters: · Industrial Museum [43] · Bessemer Converter [12] · Steel Production [7] · Industrial Past [6] · Molten Iron [2] Title Clusters: · Kelham Island [2] ·
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Grid Square
SK3588, 449 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
M J Richardson   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Wednesday, 12 October, 2011   (more nearby)
Submitted
Sunday, 16 October, 2011
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SK 3525 8814 [10m precision]
WGS84: 53:23.3358N 1:28.2869W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SK 3515 8818
View Direction
East-southeast (about 112 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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