Microstructure of Historical Fe-Based Objects

Aside from some use of meteoritic iron by ancient peoples, most Fe-based artifacts prior to the late 19^th C were made from wrought iron made by the bloomery process. The Iron Age began in ~2000 BC. Cast iron was first produced in China during the Han Wei period (206 BC to 534 AD); this was a form of malleable iron apparently made by high temperature heating of white cast iron, which has been called “spheroidal” graphite cast iron, although it contained neither Ce nor Mg. Cast iron production in the West can be traced to about the 1^st C AD. The Chinese developed the first blast furnace with a vertical acting bellows by 1313 AD while the first blast furnace in the West was developed in Italy in 1463 AD.

The talk will illustrate the microstructure of Roman nails, knives made in Poland between the 6^th and 9^th C AD, 16^th C Japanese swords, helmets made in Japan (17^th C) and Europe (18^th C), as well as some post Industrial Revolution iron and steel, e.g., structural steel from the Brooklyn Bridge, structural steel from the Palm House at Kew Gardens, steel from the Tay Bridge, deck plate from the SS Nomadic, a tender for the Titanic, and steel used in the USS Arizona.