This is one of the three original 60-ton vessels by which the basic oxygen process (BOP) of steel making was introduced into this country from Austria, where it was invented. It heralded the first new technology in fifty years to become the basis of a major process for steel production throughout the world. In this process, a water-cooled lance injected a jet of high-purity oxygen into the bath of molten iron. Various chemical reactions produced a quality low-nitrogen steel at a ton-per-hour rate nearly three times that of the open hearth furnace.
Minerals Extraction & Refining
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Image Credit: Courtesy ASMEImage Caption: Basic-Oxygen Steel Making VesselEra_date_from: 1955
1985
The Saugus Ironworks, the first commercial ironworks in North America, was an impressive technological achievement for an early colony. The same basic processes are used today: reducing iron oxide with carbon to produce metallic iron that can be cast in a mold, producing wrought iron by puddling cast iron, and fabricating wrought iron with power hammer and rolls.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Kristin Shoemaker (CC BY-ND 2.0)Image Caption: One of the Saugus Ironworks' water wheels in motionEra_date_from: 1647
1975
This floating dredge is one of the last mammoth gold dredges in the Fairbanks Mining District that traveled an ancient stream bed, thawing the ground ahead of it and scooping up the gravel. During 32 years of operation, a fortune in gold washed through its sluices. Ladder dredges came to Alaska in the early 1920s, after the U.S. Smelting, Refining, and Mining Company (USSR&M) brought water to the area via the 90-mile Davidson Ditch. Using the water to warm the ground, the ground was thawed at an average 9 inches a day.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Flickr/Roger Wollstadt (CC BY-SA 2.0)Image Caption: Fairbanks Exploration Company Gold Dredge No.Era_date_from: 1928
1986
Innovations
