The Legacy of Dr. Erwin Northrup
As ASM celebrates its 100th year anniversary, its creation occurred at the same time that Princeton University supported Dr. Northrup activities at Palmer Laboratories. With the vision and leadership of William Park Woodside the need for consolidating and advancing heat treating knowledge inspired the formation of American Society of Metals (ASM). At the same time, Dr. Northrup was also a visionary and change agent as the innovator of induction heating, known as the “glamor invention” of the time -a “fireless-wireless furnace.”
Induction heating was considered a “disruptive” technology which induced electrical currents generated internally within metal materials (molten or solid). These part/charge internal electric currents, flowing against the inherent part electrical resistivity (I2R), can generate an unlimited level of internal heating. Dr. Northrup recognized the key to making induction work was the use of high frequency power supply generators. With his knowledge and understanding, Northrup led and motivated the electrical hardware industry, specifically GE and Westinghouse, as the development and manufacturing of the high frequency power supplies and capacitors. After leaving Princeton, Northrup successfully founded the Ajax Electrothermic Corp., which was founded on dedicated technical leadership and conviction to find and implement solutions.
Dr. Northrup’s legacy of strong technical competency and dedicated scientific approach to finding solutions was the operational model that supported and fostered induction heating accomplishments to date. Of equal importance, we must concentrate on moving heat treating from an experienced based technology to fully science based technology. Induction heating, with its strong use of computational modeling of actual accelerated thermal dynamics, is capable of achieving substantial gains in process and parts improvements.