Robert Durrer
Robert Durrer | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1890 |
| Died | 1978 (aged 87–88) |
Robert Durrer (1890–1978) was a Swiss engineer who developed the basic oxygen steelmaking process (the Linz-Donawitz process, named after the towns where the technology was commercialized). The process was successfully tested by Durrer in 1948. A team led by Dr Theodor Eduard Suess in Austria adapted the process and scaled it to industrial size, and it was commercialized by VÖEST and ÖAMG.[1]
Durrer graduated from the Aachen University in 1915. He stayed in Germany and in 1928 accepted the chair of the Professor of Metallurgy at the Berlin Institute of Technology.[1] From 1933 to 1939, during his time in Nazi Germany, Durrer supervised experiments on the new steel making technique.[2] In 1943 Durrer returned from Nazi Germany to Switzerland and was appointed to the board of von Roll AG, the country's largest steelmaker.[1] Durrer teamed up with Heinrich Heilbrugge and ran a series of experiments that established commercial viability of basic oxygen metallurgy.[1] In 1947 Durrer ordered a small experimental converter from the United States, and on 1 April 1948 Durrer and Heilbrugge produced their first oxygen-blown steel.[1]
In the summer of 1948 von Roll AG and two Austrian state-owned companies, VÖEST and ÖAMG, agreed to commercialize the Durrer process.[3] Their commercial converter furnaces were put into operation in November 1952 (VÖEST in Linz) and May 1953 (ÖAMG, Donawitz)[4] and temporarily became the leading edge of the world's steelmaking, causing a surge in steel-related research.[5] Unlike Europe, whose industrial capacity had been decimated by World War II, America had a large base of steelmaking capacity, and it was economic to retain, rather than replace, its capital stock. U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel nonetheless introduced oxygen steelmaking in 1964;[6] by 1969, its tonnage surpassed that manufactured using the Bessemer process.[7] Japan became an early adopter and by 1970 produced 80% of its steel in Linz-Donawitz furnaces.[6] Durrer's contribution to practical steelmaking was marked by the AIME Benjamin F. Fairless Award, 1966.[8][9] etc.
Durrer was a Professor at ETH Zurich from 1943 to 1961. He edited and co-authored the multi-volume Metallurgie des Eisens (Metallurgy of Iron, or the "Gmelin-Durrer"). The annual Staudinger-Durrer Prize awarded by ETH Zurich commemorates Durrer along with Nobel Prize winner Hermann Staudinger.[10]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Smil, p. 97.
- ^ Allen, James Albert (1967). Studies in Innovation in the Steel and Chemical Industries. Manchester University Press.
- ^ Smil, pp. 97-98.
- ^ Smil, p. 98.
- ^ Brock and Elzinga, p. 39.
- ^ a b Smil, p. 99.
- ^ http://www.steel.org/making-steel/how-its-made/processes/processes-info/the-basic-oxygen-steelmaking-process.aspx
- ^ Blast furnace and steel plant, vol. 54, 1966, p. 91.
- ^ AIST Benjamin F. Fairless Award (AIME). Association for Iron and Steel Technology. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
- ^ Staudinger-Durrer Prize. ETH Zurich. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
References
- Smil, Vaclav (2006). Transforming the twentieth century: technical innovations and their consequences, Volume 2. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-516875-5.
- Brock, James W.; Elzinga, Kenneth G. (1991). Antitrust, the market, and the state: the contributions of Walter Adams. M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-87332-855-8.
