science · 25 April 1897 · 127 years ago
birth
Born 25 Apr 1897; died 14 May 1983 at age 86.
American physical chemist and metallurgist who researched the role of oxygen in iron and steelmaking. Applying the theories of physical chemistry, he examined the reactions between slag and liquid iron and advanced the techniques of pig iron and steel production. From his work in the early 1930s at the University of Michigan, he began to establish an international reputation for his research on steel. He became a professor of process metallury at M.I.T. in 1937, and was the department head from 1946 until retirement in 1962. During WW II he took a leave of absence from 1943, to work for the Manhattan Project as chief of its metallurgy section, where he found a method to convert powdered unranium into soliod castings, thus providing researchers with a reliable alternate supply of castings when solid uranium was scarce.
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