Industrial Processes and Materials Quiz

The Bessemer Process

• A process for melting iron, marking the start of industrialization.
• Invented by Henry Bessemer in 1856.
• Called "The Manufacture of Iron Without Fuel."
• Blows oxygen through pig iron to remove impurities.
• Resulting material is steel.
• Steel is stronger and more reliable than iron, thus improving bridges and rail tracks.

X-ray Crystallography

• A fundamental technique to view the composition of materials.
• Developed in 1912.
• Determines the size of atoms and their chemical bonds.
• Used to understand the function and structure of DNA.
• Demonstrates the hexagonal symmetry of a snowflake.
• Used to study the atomic structure of new materials.

Extractive Metallurgy

• The process of separating raw materials.
• In 5000 BC, people in modern-day Turkey discovered how to extract liquid copper from malachite and azurite.
• Discovered that molten metal can be cast into shapes.
• Essentially, the process starts with separating raw materials.
• The process outputs: feed (raw ore), concentrate (valuable metal), and tailings (waste).

Crucible Steel Making (Wootz Steel)

• Developed in India and Sri Lanka around 300 BC.
• Involves heating porous iron until very hot, hammering it to release slag, then packing the iron with wood chips in a clay crucible, and heating to absorb carbon from the wood.
• The resulting steel is known as Wootz steel (crucible steel), is the material for famous Damascus swords.
• This steel had an unusual wood-grain pattern.

Modern Concrete

• John Smeaton invented modern concrete in 1755.
• Created for building the third Eddystone Lighthouse on the English Channel.
• Needed a material to withstand waves.
• Needed a material that set quickly; hence, the 12-hour window between tides.
• "Hydraulic" mortar: water added to cement powder.
• Cemented material hardens underwater.
• Best hydraulic cements are made from specific proportions of limestone, brick powder, and fine pebbles.
• This is the beginning of modern use of cement and concrete.
• Joseph Aspdin created Portland cement later.

Optical Microscopy

• Developed by Anton van Leeuwenhoek around 1668.
• The design of the optical microscope has remained largely the same.
• Leeuwenhoek is credited with popularizing the microscope.
• The oldest known drawing made with a microscope is of bees.

Glass

• After ceramics, glass is the greatest non-metallic engineering material.
• Naturally found (volcanic glass) and used since the Stone Age for sharp cutting tools.
• First man-made forms are believed to start in Northern Syria and formally made in Iran.
• Glass includes lime, soda, and silica.
• Became more of an aesthetic art form in the 19th century (jewelry and sculpture).
• In terms of science, glass is non-crystalline material. Its atoms aren't in a lattice arrangement, and can transition from brittle to molten-like forms.

The Transistor

• Considered one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.
• Invented by John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1948.
• Involved connecting gold points to a germanium crystal (semiconductor similar to silicon).
• Produced a signal with greater output power than its input.
• Awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
• At its core, a transistor is a semiconductor that amplifies and "switches" electrical signals.

Smelting Iron

• Egyptians were thought to be the first to smelt iron around 3500 BC.
• Considered the first significant process in metallurgy.
• The process of smelting is removing metal from its ore.
• Earliest smelting methods involved a bloomery furnace at just low enough temperatures to not melt the iron.
• The product is a spongy porous mass of iron known as a bloom.
• The bloom is hammered into desired shapes.

Periodic Table of the Elements

• Dimitri Mendeleev created the first organized periodic table in 1869.
• It is the most referenced tool in materials science.
• The modern periodic table arranges 118 elements based on their atomic number and chemical properties.
• Atomic number increases from Hydrogen to Plutonium which is the naturally occurring element with the highest number of protons in its nucleus.
• The table is useful for understanding relationships between elements and predicting properties of new elements.
• Mendeleev left gaps in the table for predicted undiscovered elements, demonstrating profound foresight.

Test your knowledge on significant industrial processes such as the Bessemer Process, X-ray Crystallography, and Extractive Metallurgy. This quiz covers key inventions, techniques, and their impact on material science and engineering. Explore the foundations that shaped modern industrial practices.