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89-620: John Blenkinsop (1783 – 22 January 1831) was an English mining engineer and an inventor of steam locomotives , who designed the first practical railway locomotive. He was born in Felling , County Durham, the son of a stonemason and was apprenticed to his cousin, Thomas Barnes, a Northumberland coal viewer . From 1808 he became agent to Charles John Brandling , who owned collieries on his Middleton estate near Leeds and whose family came from Felling. From then until his death, Blenkinsop lived at Middleton Hall on Town Street, Middleton, built in

178-552: A 1959 Australian decision ("NRDC"), they believe that it is not possible to grasp the invention concept in a single rule. A British court once stated that the technical character test implies a "restatement of the problem in more imprecise terminology." In the United States, all patent applications are considered inventions. The statute explicitly says that the American invention concept includes discoveries (35 USC § 100(a)), contrary to

267-514: A bar, expelling slag in the process. During the Middle Ages , water-power was applied to the process, probably initially for powering bellows, and only later to hammers for forging the blooms. However, while it is certain that water-power was used, the details remain uncertain. That was the culmination of the direct process of ironmaking. It survived in Spain and southern France as Catalan Forges to

356-582: A carbon content of less than 0.008 wt% . Bar iron is a generic term sometimes used to distinguish it from cast iron. It is the equivalent of an ingot of cast metal, in a convenient form for handling, storage, shipping and further working into a finished product. The bars were the usual product of the finery forge , but not necessarily made by that process: Wrought iron is a form of commercial iron containing less than 0.10% of carbon, less than 0.25% of impurities total of sulfur, phosphorus, silicon and manganese, and less than 2% slag by weight. Wrought iron

445-433: A claimed invention is actually an invention. The rules and requirements for patenting an invention vary by country and the process of obtaining a patent is often expensive. Another meaning of invention is cultural invention , which is an innovative set of useful social behaviours adopted by people and passed on to others. The Institute for Social Inventions collected many such ideas in magazines and books. Invention

534-470: A final product. Sometimes European ironworks would skip the shingling process completely and roll the puddle balls. The only drawback to that is that the edges of the rough bars were not as well compressed. When the rough bar was reheated, the edges might separate and be lost into the furnace. The bloom was passed through rollers and to produce bars. The bars of wrought iron were of poor quality, called muck bars or puddle bars. To improve their quality,

623-463: A high silky luster and fibrous appearance. Wrought iron lacks the carbon content necessary for hardening through heat treatment , but in areas where steel was uncommon or unknown, tools were sometimes cold-worked (hence cold iron ) to harden them. An advantage of its low carbon content is its excellent weldability. Furthermore, sheet wrought iron cannot bend as much as steel sheet metal when cold worked. Wrought iron can be melted and cast; however,

712-512: A locomotive weighing around five tons, Blenkinsop was less sanguine. In 1811 he patented (No 3431), a rack and pinion system for a locomotive which would be designed and built by Matthew Murray of Fenton, Murray and Wood in Holbeck . The general opinion of the time was that a locomotive would draw up to four times its weight by adhesion alone (assuming good conditions), but Blenkinsop wanted more, and his engine, weighing five tons, regularly hauled

801-434: A low scale to supply the steel to the artisan swordmakers. Osmond iron consisted of balls of wrought iron, produced by melting pig iron and catching the droplets on a staff, which was spun in front of a blast of air so as to expose as much of it as possible to the air and oxidise its carbon content. The resultant ball was often forged into bar iron in a hammer mill. In the 15th century, the blast furnace spread into what

890-449: A lower melting point than iron or steel. Cast and especially pig iron have excess slag which must be at least partially removed to produce quality wrought iron. At foundries it was common to blend scrap wrought iron with cast iron to improve the physical properties of castings. For several years after the introduction of Bessemer and open hearth steel, there were different opinions as to what differentiated iron from steel; some believed it

979-459: A modest amount of wrought iron was refined into steel , which was used mainly to produce swords , cutlery , chisels , axes , and other edged tools, as well as springs and files. The demand for wrought iron reached its peak in the 1860s, being in high demand for ironclad warships and railway use. However, as properties such as brittleness of mild steel improved with better ferrous metallurgy and as steel became less costly to make thanks to

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1068-480: A new kind of abstraction by dripping, pouring, splashing and splattering paint onto un-stretched canvas lying on the floor. Inventive tools of the artist's trade also produced advances in creativity. Impressionist painting became possible because of newly invented collapsible, resealable metal paint tubes that facilitated spontaneous painting outdoors. Inventions originally created in the form of artwork can also develop other uses, e.g. Alexander Calder's mobile, which

1157-589: A number of patented processes for that, which are referred to today as potting and stamping . The earliest were developed by John Wood of Wednesbury and his brother Charles Wood of Low Mill at Egremont , patented in 1763. Another was developed for the Coalbrookdale Company by the Cranage brothers . Another important one was that of John Wright and Joseph Jesson of West Bromwich . A number of processes for making wrought iron without charcoal were devised as

1246-504: A patent applications made to the US Patent Office for inventions are less likely to succeed where the applicant have a "feminine" name, and additionally women could lose their independent legal patent rights to their husbands once married. See also the gender gap in patents . Wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%). It

1335-519: A payload of ninety tons. The first locomotive probably was Salamanca , built in early 1812. Three other locomotives followed, one later in 1812, one around 1813, and the last one in 1815. One of these three was named Lord Wellington , and the other two allegedly were named Prince Regent and Marquis Wellington , though there is no contemporary mention of those names. Similar locomotives were built for collieries at Orrell near Wigan by Robert Daglish under licence from Blenkinsop, and at least one other

1424-410: A process for manufacturing wrought iron quickly and economically. It involved taking molten steel from a Bessemer converter and pouring it into cooler liquid slag. The temperature of the steel is about 1500 °C and the liquid slag is maintained at approximately 1200 °C. The molten steel contains a large amount of dissolved gases so when the liquid steel hit the cooler surfaces of the liquid slag

1513-410: A refinery where raw coal was used to remove silicon and convert carbon within the raw material, found in the form of graphite, to a combination with iron called cementite. In the fully developed process (of Hall), this metal was placed into the hearth of the puddling furnace where it was melted. The hearth was lined with oxidizing agents such as haematite and iron oxide. The mixture was subjected to

1602-481: A single hearth for all stages. The introduction of coke for use in the blast furnace by Abraham Darby in 1709 (or perhaps others a little earlier) initially had little effect on wrought iron production. Only in the 1750s was coke pig iron used on any significant scale as the feedstock of finery forges. However, charcoal continued to be the fuel for the finery. From the late 1750s, ironmasters began to develop processes for making bar iron without charcoal. There were

1691-443: A small amount of silicate slag forged out into fibers. It comprises around 99.4% iron by mass. The presence of slag can be beneficial for blacksmithing operations, such as forge welding, since the silicate inclusions act as a flux and give the material its unique, fibrous structure. The silicate filaments in the slag also protect the iron from corrosion and diminish the effect of fatigue caused by shock and vibration. Historically,

1780-412: A strong current of air and stirred with long bars, called puddling bars or rabbles, through working doors. The air, the stirring, and the "boiling" action of the metal helped the oxidizing agents to oxidize the impurities and carbon out of the pig iron. As the impurities oxidize, they formed a molten slag or drifted off as gas, while the remaining iron solidified into spongy wrought iron that floated to

1869-424: Is redshort or hot short if it contains sulfur in excess quantity. It has sufficient tenacity when cold, but cracks when bent or finished at a red heat. Hot short iron was considered unmarketable. Cold short iron, also known as coldshear , colshire , contains excessive phosphorus. It is very brittle when cold and cracks if bent. It may, however, be worked at high temperature. Historically, coldshort iron

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1958-414: Is a more important measure of the quality of wrought iron. In tensile testing, the best irons are able to undergo considerable elongation before failure. Higher tensile wrought iron is brittle. Because of the large number of boiler explosions on steamboats in the early 1800s, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 1830 which approved funds for correcting the problem. The treasury awarded a $ 1500 contract to

2047-450: Is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" that is visible when it is etched, rusted, or bent to failure . Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile , corrosion resistant, and easily forge welded , but is more difficult to weld electrically. Before the development of effective methods of steelmaking and the availability of large quantities of steel, wrought iron

2136-449: Is also an important component of artistic and design creativity . Inventions often extend the boundaries of human knowledge, experience or capability. Inventions are of three kinds: scientific-technological (including medicine), sociopolitical (including economics and law), and humanistic, or cultural. Scientific-technological inventions include railroads, aviation , vaccination , hybridization, antibiotics , astronautics, holography ,

2225-427: Is also an important legal concept and central to patent law systems worldwide. As is often the case for legal concepts, its legal meaning is slightly different from common usage of the word. Additionally, the legal concept of invention is quite different in American and European patent law. In Europe, the first test a patent application must pass is, "Is this an invention?" If it is, subsequent questions are whether it

2314-513: Is an archaic past participle of the verb "to work", and so "wrought iron" literally means "worked iron". Wrought iron is a general term for the commodity, but is also used more specifically for finished iron goods, as manufactured by a blacksmith . It was used in that narrower sense in British Customs records, such manufactured iron was subject to a higher rate of duty than what might be called "unwrought" iron. Cast iron , unlike wrought iron,

2403-435: Is brittle and cannot be worked either hot or cold. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, wrought iron went by a wide variety of terms according to its form, origin, or quality. While the bloomery process produced wrought iron directly from ore, cast iron or pig iron were the starting materials used in the finery forge and puddling furnace . Pig iron and cast iron have higher carbon content than wrought iron, but have

2492-491: Is deceptive. Most of the manganese, sulfur, phosphorus, and silicon in the wrought iron are incorporated into the slag fibers, making wrought iron purer than plain carbon steel. Amongst its other properties, wrought iron becomes soft at red heat and can be easily forged and forge welded . It can be used to form temporary magnets , but it cannot be magnetized permanently, and is ductile , malleable , and tough . For most purposes, ductility rather than tensile strength

2581-612: Is new and sufficiently inventive. The implication—counter-intuitively—is that a legal invention is not inherently novel. Whether a patent application relates to an invention is governed by Article 52 of the European Patent Convention, that excludes, e.g., discoveries as such and software as such . The EPO Boards of Appeal decided that the technical character of an application is decisive for it to represent an invention, following an age-old Italian and German tradition. British courts do not agree with this interpretation. Following

2670-407: Is no longer manufactured commercially. Wrought iron was originally produced by a variety of smelting processes, all described today as "bloomeries". Different forms of bloomery were used at different places and times. The bloomery was charged with charcoal and iron ore and then lit. Air was blown in through a tuyere to heat the bloomery to a temperature somewhat below the melting point of iron. In

2759-450: Is no longer produced on a commercial scale. Many products described as wrought iron, such as guard rails , garden furniture , and gates are made of mild steel. They are described as "wrought iron" only because they have been made to resemble objects which in the past were wrought (worked) by hand by a blacksmith (although many decorative iron objects, including fences and gates, were often cast rather than wrought). The word "wrought"

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2848-615: Is now Belgium where it was improved. From there, it spread via the Pays de Bray on the boundary of Normandy and then to the Weald in England. With it, the finery forge spread. Those remelted the pig iron and (in effect) burnt out the carbon, producing a bloom, which was then forged into bar iron. If rod iron was required, a slitting mill was used. The finery process existed in two slightly different forms. In Great Britain, France, and parts of Sweden, only

2937-461: Is now commonly used over babies' cribs. Funds generated from patents on inventions in art, design and architecture can support the realization of the invention or other creative work. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi 's 1879 design patent on the Statue of Liberty helped fund the famous statue because it covered small replicas, including those sold as souvenirs. The timeline for invention in the arts lists

3026-895: The Baháʼí Faith . Some of these disciplines, genres, and trends may seem to have existed eternally or to have emerged spontaneously of their own accord, but most of them have had inventors. Ideas for an invention may be developed on paper or on a computer, by writing or drawing, by trial and error , by making models, by experimenting , by testing and/or by making the invention in its whole form. Brainstorming also can spark new ideas for an invention. Collaborative creative processes are frequently used by engineers, designers, architects and scientists. Co-inventors are frequently named on patents. In addition, many inventors keep records of their working process – notebooks , photos, etc., including Leonardo da Vinci , Galileo Galilei , Evangelista Torricelli , Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein . In

3115-550: The Bessemer process and the Siemens–Martin process , the use of wrought iron declined. Many items, before they came to be made of mild steel , were produced from wrought iron, including rivets , nails , wire , chains , rails , railway couplings , water and steam pipes , nuts , bolts , horseshoes , handrails , wagon tires, straps for timber roof trusses , and ornamental ironwork , among many other things. Wrought iron

3204-472: The Industrial Revolution began during the latter half of the 18th century. The most successful of those was puddling, using a puddling furnace (a variety of the reverberatory furnace ), which was invented by Henry Cort in 1784. It was later improved by others including Joseph Hall , who was the first to add iron oxide to the charge. In that type of furnace, the metal does not come into contact with

3293-719: The United Nations , the European Union , and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , as well as movements such as socialism , Zionism , suffragism , feminism , and animal-rights veganism. Humanistic inventions encompass culture in its entirety and are as transformative and important as any in the sciences, although people tend to take them for granted. In the domain of linguistics, for example, many alphabets have been inventions, as are all neologisms ( Shakespeare invented about 1,700 words). Literary inventions include

3382-595: The Walloon process was used. That employed two different hearths, a finery hearth for finishing the iron and a chafery hearth for reheating it in the course of drawing the bloom out into a bar. The finery always burnt charcoal, but the chafery could be fired with mineral coal , since its impurities would not harm the iron when it was in the solid state. On the other hand, the German process, used in Germany, Russia, and most of Sweden used

3471-517: The bloomery ever being used in China. The fining process involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation . Wagner writes that in addition to the Han dynasty hearths believed to be fining hearths, there is also pictorial evidence of the fining hearth from a Shandong tomb mural dated 1st to 2nd century AD, as well as a hint of written evidence in

3560-413: The finery forge at least by the 2nd century BC, the earliest specimens of cast and pig iron fined into wrought iron and steel found at the early Han dynasty site at Tieshengguo. Pigott speculates that the finery forge existed in the previous Warring States period (403–221 BC), due to the fact that there are wrought iron items from China dating to that period and there is no documented evidence of

3649-428: The parachute became more useful once powered flight was a reality. Invention is often a creative process . An open and curious mind allows an inventor to see beyond what is known. Seeing a new possibility, connection or relationship can spark an invention. Inventive thinking frequently involves combining concepts or elements from different realms that would not normally be put together. Sometimes inventors disregard

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3738-479: The "abstract idea" test, which suffers from abstractness itself, but none have succeeded. The last attempt so far was the "machine or transformation" test, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2010 that it is merely an indication at best. In India, invention means a new product or process that involves an inventive step, and capable of being made or used in an industry. Whereas, "new invention" means any invention that has not been anticipated in any prior art or used in

3827-655: The 17th century as the Brandling family's Middleton home (they used the far more modern Middleton Lodge when visiting from their Tyneside homes). In 1758 the Brandlings had built a wooden wagonway to carry coal into Leeds, using horse-drawn vehicles , now known as the Middleton Railway . Not all the land traversed by the wagonway belonged to Brandling, and it was the first railway to be authorised by Act of Parliament , since this would give him power to obtain wayleave . In

3916-624: The 1960s, the price of steel production was dropping due to recycling, and even using the Aston process, wrought iron production was labor-intensive. It has been estimated that the production of wrought iron is approximately twice as expensive as that of low-carbon steel. In the United States, the last plant closed in 1969. The last in the world was the Atlas Forge of Thomas Walmsley and Sons in Bolton , Great Britain, which closed in 1973. Its 1860s-era equipment

4005-418: The 4th century AD Daoist text Taiping Jing . Wrought iron has been used for many centuries, and is the "iron" that is referred to throughout Western history. The other form of iron, cast iron , was in use in China since ancient times but was not introduced into Western Europe until the 15th century; even then, due to its brittleness, it could be used for only a limited number of purposes. Throughout much of

4094-484: The European invention concept. The European invention concept corresponds to the American "patentable subject matter" concept: the first test a patent application is submitted to. While the statute (35 USC § 101) virtually poses no limits to patenting whatsoever, courts have decided in binding precedents that abstract ideas, natural phenomena and laws of nature are not patentable. Various attempts have been made to substantiate

4183-521: The Foundry, neither could be made to work properly at their intended workplaces, and both ended their days as stationary engines. The Murray/Blenkinsop locomotives had the first double-acting cylinders and, unlike the Trevithick pattern, no flywheel. The cylinders drove a geared wheel which engaged with the rack beside one rail. One of the geared locomotives was described as having two 8"x20" cylinders, driving

4272-559: The Franklin Institute to conduct a study. As part of the study, Walter R. Johnson and Benjamin Reeves conducted strength tests on boiler iron using a tester they had built in 1832 based on a design by Lagerhjelm in Sweden. Because of misunderstandings about tensile strength and ductility, their work did little to reduce failures. The importance of ductility was recognized by some very early in

4361-536: The Middle Ages, iron was produced by the direct reduction of ore in manually operated bloomeries , although water power had begun to be employed by 1104. The raw material produced by all indirect processes is pig iron. It has a high carbon content and as a consequence, it is brittle and cannot be used to make hardware. The osmond process was the first of the indirect processes, developed by 1203, but bloomery production continued in many places. The process depended on

4450-857: The Nobel Prize in 2000 and has led to innovative lighting, display screens, wallpaper and much more (see conductive polymer , and organic light-emitting diode or OLED ). Invention is often an exploratory process with an uncertain or unknown outcome. There are failures as well as successes. Inspiration can start the process, but no matter how complete the initial idea, inventions typically must be developed. Inventors may, for example, try to improve something by making it more effective, healthier, faster, more efficient, easier to use, serve more purposes, longer lasting, cheaper, more ecologically friendly, or aesthetically different, lighter weight, more ergonomic , structurally different, with new light or color properties, etc. In economic theory , inventions are one of

4539-785: The atomic bomb, computing, the Internet , and the smartphone. Sociopolitical inventions comprise new laws, institutions, and procedures that change modes of social behavior and establish new forms of human interaction and organization. Examples include the British Parliament , the US Constitution , the Manchester (UK) General Union of Trades, the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross , the Olympic Games ,

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4628-451: The bars were cut up, piled and tied together by wires, a process known as faggoting or piling. They were then reheated to a welding state, forge welded, and rolled again into bars. The process could be repeated several times to produce wrought iron of desired quality. Wrought iron that has been rolled multiple times is called merchant bar or merchant iron. The advantage of puddling was that it used coal, not charcoal as fuel. However, that

4717-487: The boundaries between distinctly separate territories or fields. Several concepts may be considered when thinking about invention. Play may lead to invention. Childhood curiosity, experimentation, and imagination can develop one's play instinct. Inventors feel the need to play with things that interest them, and to explore, and this internal drive brings about novel creations. Sometimes inventions and ideas may seem to arise spontaneously while daydreaming , especially when

4806-554: The case of polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon). Insight can also be a vital element of invention. Such inventive insights may begin with questions, doubt or a hunch . It may begin by recognizing that something unusual or accidental may be useful or that it could open a new avenue for exploration. For example, the odd metallic color of plastic made by accidentally adding a thousand times too much catalyst led scientists to explore its metal-like properties, inventing electrically conductive plastic and light emitting plastic—an invention that won

4895-517: The chief examples of " positive externalities ", a beneficial side effect that falls on those outside a transaction or activity. One of the central concepts of economics is that externalities should be internalized—unless some of the benefits of this positive externality can be captured by the parties, the parties are under-rewarded for their inventions, and systematic under-rewarding leads to under-investment in activities that lead to inventions. The patent system captures those positive externalities for

4984-482: The conscious mind turns away from the subject or problem when the inventor's focus is on something else, or while relaxing or sleeping. A novel idea may come in a flash—a Eureka ! moment. For example, after years of working to figure out the general theory of relativity, the solution came to Einstein suddenly in a dream "like a giant die making an indelible impress, a huge map of the universe outlined itself in one clear vision". Inventions can also be accidental, such as in

5073-473: The country or anywhere in the world. Invention has a long and important history in the arts . Inventive thinking has always played a vital role in the creative process . While some inventions in the arts are patentable , others are not because they cannot fulfill the strict requirements governments have established for granting them. (see patent ). Some inventions in art include the: Likewise, Jackson Pollock invented an entirely new form of painting and

5162-413: The course of the smelt, slag would melt and run out, and carbon monoxide from the charcoal would reduce the ore to iron, which formed a spongy mass (called a "bloom") containing iron and also molten silicate minerals (slag) from the ore. The iron remained in the solid state. If the bloomery were allowed to become hot enough to melt the iron, carbon would dissolve into it and form pig or cast iron, but that

5251-474: The development of locomotive power continued nonetheless. A shortage of horses and fodder brought about by the Napoleonic Wars had made steam traction a more attractive proposition and encouraged further development. Moreover, edge rails , made entirely of iron, laid at Middleton Railway from around 1799, were stronger. While many people, such as William Hedley , felt that adhesion should be adequate with

5340-580: The development of the blast furnace, of which medieval examples have been discovered at Lapphyttan , Sweden and in Germany . The bloomery and osmond processes were gradually replaced from the 15th century by finery processes, of which there were two versions, the German and Walloon. They were in turn replaced from the late 18th century by puddling , with certain variants such as the Swedish Lancashire process . Those, too, are now obsolete, and wrought iron

5429-477: The early nineteenth century , attempts were being made to employ steam power for haulage . Richard Trevithick had experimented with various models of steam locomotive, and in 1805 his work had culminated in an engine for the Wylam Colliery. The cast-iron plated wood rails were unable to take the engine's heavy weight, however, and the initial attempt to convert to steam locomotion at Wylam was abandoned. Work on

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5518-839: The epic, tragedy , comedy, the novel , the sonnet , the Renaissance , neoclassicism, Romanticism , Symbolism , Aestheticism, Socialist Realism , Surrealism , postmodernism , and (according to Freud) psychoanalysis . Among the inventions of artists and musicians are oil painting, printmaking, photography , cinema , musical tonality, atonality, jazz , rock, opera , and the symphony orchestra. Philosophers have invented logic (several times), dialectics , idealism, materialism, utopia , anarchism , semiotics , phenomenology , behaviorism , positivism , pragmatism , and deconstruction . Religious thinkers are responsible for such inventions as monotheism , pantheism , Methodism , Mormonism , iconoclasm, puritanism , deism , secularism, ecumenism, and

5607-626: The expected future production of a pit, as well as to make suggestions as to how its operation and production could be improved. Blenkinsop died in Leeds in 1831, and is buried at Rothwell Parish Church. Inventor An inventor creates or discovers an invention. The word inventor comes from the Latin verb invenire , invent- , to find. Although inventing is closely associated with science and engineering, inventors are not necessarily engineers or scientists. Due to advances in artificial intelligence ,

5696-432: The fuel, and so is not contaminated by its impurities. The heat of the combustion products passes over the surface of the puddle and the roof of the furnace reverberates (reflects) the heat onto the metal puddle on the fire bridge of the furnace. Unless the raw material used is white cast iron, the pig iron or other raw product of the puddling first had to be refined into refined iron , or finers metal. That would be done in

5785-401: The gases were liberated. The molten steel then froze to yield a spongy mass having a temperature of about 1370 °C. The spongy mass would then be finished by being shingled and rolled as described under puddling (above). Three to four tons could be converted per batch with the method. Steel began to replace iron for railroad rails as soon as the Bessemer process for its manufacture

5874-441: The inventor or other patent owner so that the economy as a whole invests an optimum amount of resources in the invention process. In contrast to invention, innovation is the implementation of a creative idea that specifically leads to greater value or usefulness. That is, while an invention may be useless or have no value yet still be an invention, an innovation must have some sort of value, typically economic. The term invention

5963-430: The iron. The included slag in wrought iron also imparts corrosion resistance. Antique music wire , manufactured at a time when mass-produced carbon-steels were available, was found to have low carbon and high phosphorus; iron with high phosphorus content, normally causing brittleness when worked cold, was easily drawn into music wires. Although at the time phosphorus was not an easily identified component of iron, it

6052-485: The memory of Mr. John Blenkinsop, upwards of twenty three years Steward to the Middleton Estate who departed this life, January 22nd 1831, aged 47 years. Sincerely regretted by all who knew him. The centenary observed - 25th Jan. 1931. John Blenkinsop invented the rack railway in 1811 and on a line he built between Leeds and Middleton, 4 Matthew Murray locomotives ran from 1812 to 1835. His system

6141-504: The mid 19th century, in Austria as the stuckofen to 1775, and near Garstang in England until about 1770; it was still in use with hot blast in New York in the 1880s. In Japan the last of the old tatara bloomeries used in production of traditional tamahagane steel, mainly used in swordmaking, was extinguished only in 1925, though in the late 20th century the production resumed on

6230-415: The mind is free from its usual concerns. For example, both J. K. Rowling (the creator of Harry Potter ) and Frank Hornby (the inventor of Meccano ) first had their ideas while on train journeys. In contrast, the successful aerospace engineer Max Munk advocated "aimful thinking". To invent is to see anew. Inventors often envision a new idea, seeing it in their mind's eye . New ideas can arise when

6319-402: The most notable artistic inventors. Historically, women in many regions have been unrecognised for their inventive contributions (except Russia and France ), despite being the sole inventor or co-inventor in inventions, including highly notable inventions. Notable examples include Margaret Knight who faced significant challenges in receiving credit for her inventions; Elizabeth Magie who

6408-445: The process of developing an invention, the initial idea may change. The invention may become simpler, more practical, it may expand, or it may even morph into something totally different. Working on one invention can lead to others too. History shows that turning the concept of an invention into a working device is not always swift or direct. Inventions may also become more useful after time passes and other changes occur. For example,

6497-666: The product is no longer wrought iron, since the slag stringers characteristic of wrought iron disappear on melting, so the product resembles impure, cast, Bessemer steel. There is no engineering advantage to melting and casting wrought iron, as compared to using cast iron or steel, both of which are cheaper. Due to the variations in iron ore origin and iron manufacture, wrought iron can be inferior or superior in corrosion resistance, compared to other iron alloys. There are many mechanisms behind its corrosion resistance. Chilton and Evans found that nickel enrichment bands reduce corrosion. They also found that in puddled, forged, and piled iron,

6586-531: The same manner as mild steel, but the presence of oxide or inclusions will give defective results. The material has a rough surface, so it can hold platings and coatings better than smooth steel. For instance, a galvanic zinc finish applied to wrought iron is approximately 25–40% thicker than the same finish on steel. In Table 1, the chemical composition of wrought iron is compared to that of pig iron and carbon steel . Although it appears that wrought iron and plain carbon steel have similar chemical compositions, that

6675-417: The term "inventor" no longer exclusively applies to an occupation (see human computers ). Some inventions can be patented. The system of patents was established to encourage inventors by granting limited-term, limited monopoly on inventions determined to be sufficiently novel, non-obvious, and useful . A patent legally protects the intellectual property rights of the inventor and legally recognizes that

6764-465: The top of the puddle and was fished out of the melt as puddle balls, using puddle bars. There was still some slag left in the puddle balls, so while they were still hot they would be shingled to remove the remaining slag and cinder. That was achieved by forging the balls under a hammer, or by squeezing the bloom in a machine. The material obtained at the end of shingling is known as bloom. The blooms are not useful in that form, so they were rolled into

6853-421: The wheels through cranks. The piston crossheads worked in guides, rather than being controlled by parallel motion like the majority of early locomotives. Between them, the engines saw more than twenty years of service. The design was superseded when rolled iron rail, which could bear the heavier adhesion locomotives, was introduced in 1820. This was quickly adopted by George Stephenson and others. Sacred to

6942-560: The working-over of the metal spread out copper, nickel, and tin impurities that produce electrochemical conditions that slow down corrosion. The slag inclusions have been shown to disperse corrosion to an even film, enabling the iron to resist pitting. Another study has shown that slag inclusions are pathways to corrosion. Other studies show that sulfur in the wrought iron decreases corrosion resistance, while phosphorus increases corrosion resistance. Chloride ions also decrease wrought iron's corrosion resistance. Wrought iron may be welded in

7031-479: Was adopted (1865 on). Iron remained dominant for structural applications until the 1880s, because of problems with brittle steel, caused by introduced nitrogen, high carbon, excess phosphorus, or excessive temperature during or too-rapid rolling. By 1890 steel had largely replaced iron for structural applications. Sheet iron (Armco 99.97% pure iron) had good properties for use in appliances, being well-suited for enamelling and welding, and being rust-resistant. In

7120-530: Was adopted at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1813 and Wigan in 1814. These railways were the first on which steam locomotion was a commercial success. In addition to managing the Middleton Collieries, in the 1820s John Blenkinsop was the consulting engineer for Sir John Lister Kaye of Denby Grange, owner of Caphouse Colliery . Also, as a qualified "Viewer", he was hired by various other colliery owners to examine their collieries and report on such vital matters as

7209-612: Was built by Matthew Murray for the Kenton and Coxlodge Collieries at Newcastle-upon-Tyne . What should have been Blenkinsop's third locomotive had already been sent to the Kenton and Coxlodge Waggonway at his request. There, it seems to have acquired the name Willington . Two locomotives of this pattern were also made by the Royal Iron Foundry in Berlin . Though they worked well when tested at

7298-484: Was considered sufficient for nails . Phosphorus is not necessarily detrimental to iron. Ancient Near Eastern smiths did not add lime to their furnaces. The absence of calcium oxide in the slag, and the deliberate use of wood with high phosphorus content during the smelting, induces a higher phosphorus content (typically <0.3%) than in modern iron (<0.02–0.03%). Analysis of the Iron Pillar of Delhi gives 0.11% in

7387-515: Was hypothesized that the type of iron had been rejected for conversion to steel but excelled when tested for drawing ability. During the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), new iron smelting processes led to the manufacture of new wrought iron implements for use in agriculture, such as the multi-tube seed drill and iron plough . In addition to accidental lumps of low-carbon wrought iron produced by excessive injected air in ancient Chinese cupola furnaces . The ancient Chinese created wrought iron by using

7476-471: Was moved to the Blists Hill site of Ironbridge Gorge Museum for preservation. Some wrought iron is still being produced for heritage restoration purposes, but only by recycling scrap. The slag inclusions, or stringers , in wrought iron give it properties not found in other forms of ferrous metal. There are approximately 250,000 inclusions per square inch. A fresh fracture shows a clear bluish color with

7565-529: Was not credited for her invention of the game of Monopoly ; and among other such examples, Chien-Shiung Wu whose male colleagues alone were awarded the Nobel Prize for their joint contributions to physics. Societal prejudice, institutional, educational and often legal patent barriers have both played a role in the gender invention gap. For example, although there could be found female patenters in US patent Office who also are likely to be helpful in their experience, still

7654-445: Was not the intention. However, the design of a bloomery made it difficult to reach the melting point of iron and also prevented the concentration of carbon monoxide from becoming high. After smelting was complete, the bloom was removed, and the process could then be started again. It was thus a batch process, rather than a continuous one such as a blast furnace. The bloom had to be forged mechanically to consolidate it and shape it into

7743-528: Was of little advantage in Sweden, which lacked coal. Gustaf Ekman observed charcoal fineries at Ulverston , which were quite different from any in Sweden. After his return to Sweden in the 1830s, he experimented and developed a process similar to puddling but used firewood and charcoal, which was widely adopted in the Bergslagen in the following decades. In 1925, James Aston of the United States developed

7832-473: Was the chemical composition and others that it was whether the iron heated sufficiently to melt and "fuse". Fusion eventually became generally accepted as relatively more important than composition below a given low carbon concentration. Another difference is that steel can be hardened by heat treating . Historically, wrought iron was known as "commercially pure iron"; however, it no longer qualifies because current standards for commercially pure iron require

7921-404: Was the most common form of malleable iron. It was given the name wrought because it was hammered, rolled, or otherwise worked while hot enough to expel molten slag. The modern functional equivalent of wrought iron is mild steel , also called low-carbon steel. Neither wrought iron nor mild steel contain enough carbon to be hardened by heating and quenching. Wrought iron is highly refined, with

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