John Chipman MIT steelmaking research (Manhattan Project era through 1973)

Chipman applied physical chemistry to 1500°C steel melts in Building 8 basement, developed the modern iron-carbon phase diagram (1973), worked on the Manhattan Project developing sulfide ceramic crucibles for uranium and plutonium melting. His treatises appear enshrined in Plexiglas in Chinese libraries as the seminal text on steelmaking.

So let's actually start talking, after two hours of lecture about welding, about metallurgy in general first. One of the students last year asked me the question, "Why are there so many steels?" We're going to get to that. First we have to answer the question: what is steel? You might know the technical definition of steel: it's an alloy of iron and carbon. And if you go to the metallurgical literature, you'll find a phase diagram for iron-carbon. This was the aluminum-copper phase diagram I showed you a while ago. This is the iron-carbon phase diagram. If you look down at the bottom, which you can't read, in pencil — John Chipman. John Chipman was the guy who developed this diagram in 1973 or so. He was actually retired when I came as a student, but he developed this diagram. We talked about steels, and they didn't have the same quality steels back in the old days as we have today.