🔩Истоки и вехи

Solid-state reduction of ore in charcoal furnaces produced wrought iron blooms in Anatolia and the Levant.

South Indian crucible steels, later traded as Damascus blades, showed high-carbon patterned microstructures.

Chinese bloomery and fining routes scaled agricultural tools and weapons in the Han period.

Benjamin Huntsman in Sheffield remelted blister steel in clay crucibles for clock springs and cutlery.

Henry Bessemer’s air-blown converter dropped the cost of bulk steel and opened rails and ship plate.

Siemens–Martin hearths allowed scrap + pig iron charges and tighter chemistry control.

The Linz–Donawitz oxygen converter cut cycle time versus open hearth and became the global default.

Slabs and billets froze in motion, cutting energy and yield loss versus ingot teeming.

Dual-phase and TRIP steels let car bodies thin while crash energy absorption rose.

Direct-reduced iron with hydrogen aims to cut blast-furnace CO₂; first commercial lines are still regional.