Provides a practical design guide to the structural use of aluminium. The first chapters outline basic aluminium technology and the advantages of using aluminium in many structural applications. The major part of the book deals with structural design and presents very clear guidance for designers, with numerous diagrams, charts and examples.

The purpose of this study is to recuperate the history of African iron technology. Through a cross-cultural and comparative approach, it reveals both changes and significant continuities in the symbolism that conferred meaning to iron smelting over two thousand years in East and Central Africa. North America: Indiana U Press

Originally published in 1959, this book surveys the changes in the social origins and career patterns of the leaders of two British industries during the previous century. The biographies of about 1000 managing partners and executive directors from the hosiery industry are pieced together from a variety of sources. Changes in social origins and career patterns are analysed and comparisons made between the leaders of these two very different industries in an attempt to isolate the influence of industry's size and capital requirements on management recruitment. Where possible, comparisons are also made with various studies of American industrial leaders and with other investigations of British industrialists. The book attempts to provide an empirical basis for generalisations about British industrial leadership during the century in which her role in world manufacturing was transformed from that of quasi-monopolist to one of competitor with many other countries.

This is a detailed account of the British and German steel industries' performances during three decades that were marked by radical changes in technology, in sources of raw materials and in product markets. Relying on governmental and corporate archives as well as on the contemporary trade literature, Professor Wengenroth has drawn a meticulous picture of how managements in the two countries met strategic problems raised by these changes. The author does not however, merely trace technological developments; rather he uses them as a backdrop for a contribution to the long-running debate on Britain's relative industrial decline in the late nineteenth century. Was this the result of massive entrepreneurial failure or was it merely the by-product of evolutionary changes that bestowed automatic competitive advantage on latecomers such as the Germans? The author argues a detailed case for the latter scenario and, in doing so, makes a major contribution to the debate on the 'Great Depression'.

This title was first published in 1976

Over the past century, Alcoa has developed from a small entrepreneurial venture to a giant corporation; from a one-dimensional, owner-managed firm to a complex managerial bureaucracy; from a domestic company to a multinational enterprise. In the process, Alcoa survived a difficult transition from its long-held position as a monopolist (of aluminum production) to its current status as a firm operating in highly competitive international markets. This book presents Alcoa's history, from its beginnings as a speculative venture seeking to exploit an untested technology, through its rise to become the most successful monopoly in American history. By World War II, no other American corporation had developed its industry's markets more dramatically and then dominated them more completely. The book analyzes the undoing of Alcoa's monopoly by war and antitrust, as well as how Alcoa adapted to evolving forms of competition.

When Charles Martin Hall patented the process for refining the metal in 1886, it was far from self-evident that the new technology would be a business success. Problems involving the technology had to be solved. Capital and a labour force were needed. The most pressing entrepreneurial dilemma was the need to develop markets for what was then a novelty product. George David Smith examines how Alcoa met these problems, with special attention to innovation, from Alcoa's beginnings through its development into one of the most successful monopolies in American history. By World War II, no other American corporation had developed its industry's markets more dramatically and then dominated them more completely. The book then analyzes the undoing of Alcoa's monopoly by war and antitrust, and examines how the firm adapted to evolving forms of oliogopolistic and global competition.

Aluminium was one of most cartelised industries in the international economic panorama of the 20th century. Born following the discovery of electrolytic smelting process in 1886, this industry, even in its infancy, established a cartel which characterised its history until nearly 1980. Managers of the aluminium industry from various historical eras and countries shared the same vision about the development of their industry: to keep prices as stable as possible in order to encourage expansions and to provide return on investments. Price instability, which characterised the trade of other commodities, was unknown to the aluminium industry. This book neither argues that cartels are fundamentally evil, nor attempts to demonstrate that cartels are optimal business organisations. It instead provides an in-depth and frank analysis of the internal working of industrial organisations and of the interplay between cartels and political powers and institutions. The International Aluminium Cartel offers explanations for the construction and collapse of cartels, descriptions of their operations, and an historical interpretation of their experiences. Incorporating information gleaned from a unique collection of private and public archives from several countries, this unique study will appeal to a wide variety of readers, including academics interested in industrial and business history.

Aluminium was one of most cartelised industries in the international economic panorama of the 20th century. Born following the discovery of electrolytic smelting process in 1886, this industry, even in its infancy, established a cartel which characterised its history until nearly 1980. Managers of the aluminium industry from various historical eras and countries shared the same vision about the development of their industry: to keep prices as stable as possible in order to encourage expansions and to provide return on investments. Price instability, which characterised the trade of other commodities, was unknown to the aluminium industry. This book neither argues that cartels are fundamentally evil, nor attempts to demonstrate that cartels are optimal business organisations. It instead provides an in-depth and frank analysis of the internal working of industrial organisations and of the interplay between cartels and political powers and institutions. The International Aluminium Cartel offers explanations for the construction and collapse of cartels, descriptions of their operations, and an historical interpretation of their experiences. Incorporating information gleaned from a unique collection of private and public archives from several countries, this unique study will appeal to a wide variety of readers, including academics interested in industrial and business history.

By the end of the 1980s, the once mighty U.S. steel industry seemed on its last legs. More than a quarter of a million jobs had been lost, and communities like Pittsburgh and Bethlehem were devastated. Yet today, the industry again stands as a world-class competitor. In The Renaissance ofAmerican Steel, Roger Ahlbrandt, Richard Fruehan, and Frank Giarratani illuminate the forces behind this remarkable comeback, drawing valuable lessons for managers not only in the steel business but in any business now battling the global marketplace.
Citing evidence from a wide range of companies in the U.S., the U.K., and Japan, and clearly explaining the basics of steel production, the authors show how the industry's rebirth resulted both from the downsizing of big companies and the rise of minimills capturing markets from the larger companies. They describe how large, traditional firms--including U.S. Steel, British Steel, and Nippon Steel--recognized that they had to reduce the scope of their operations and reorganize to become more competitive. U.S. Steel CEO Tom Graham, for instance, closed plants and refocused the firm's resources on the market for flat-rolled products. The book also examines how minimills--such as Nucor, Birmingham Steel, Oregon Steel, Tokyo Steel, and Co-Steel Sheerness--have redefined the industry's structure and competitive dynamics. Nucor, in particular, has emerged as the leader among the minimills--the largest electric furnace-based steel company in the U.S., with annual sales exceeding $3 billion. The reader learns how CEO Ken Iverson, recognizing the opportunities to be seized if Nucor moved beyond traditional products (such as steel joists and rebar), created the most innovative steel mill in the world, with a consistent record of investing in new technologies to lower operating costs and to move into sophisticated, value-added products. Throughout the book, the authors offer sharp insights into the steel industry in the U.S. and abroad--but more important, they highlight the lessons to be learned for managers in all industries. The authors conclude, for instance, that success for both large and small steel producers depends on a critical interplay of factors that touch on leadership, new technologies, and decentralized management. Effective leaders, the authors find, don't micromanage; they set a goal for the company and communicate it broadly to gain employees' commitment. High-performing companies aggressively seek technical know-how, even if it means purchasing it from foreign competitors or securing joint agreements. And finally, successful companies decentralize, empowering employees far down in the organization to handle daily decisionmaking.
This in-depth analysis of a radically changed industry speaks volumes about the value of flexibility in business. It is an essential resource for any manager working in today's global economy.

James Moore Swank (1832 1914) was a US expert on iron and steel, and wrote widely about the industry. In 1873 he became secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association. This second edition (1892) of his influential book on iron manufacture was significantly expanded compared to the 1884 original, with 132 more pages, 15 extra chapters, and revisions throughout the text. Swank aimed to move away from the highly technical approach and European focus that had dominated previous works. Instead, he would emphasise names, dates, facts and results, and give special attention to the growth of the industry in the United States while providing an international context. He includes every country and US state that produced iron. The book is organised chronologically, and provides a fascinating account of the manufacture of iron from the ancient Egyptian period through early modern Britain to late nineteenth-century America.

The book focuses on the historical evolution of firms, and industry leaders and their strategies. Sheffield's experience is then related to current historical and economic debates about industrial structure, entrepreneurship and UK decline. Sheffield is revealed (with some important qualifications) as a remarkably enduring and successful center; and also a highly complex one, which cannot be fitted easily into present theories of mass production and entrepreneurial failure.

Solidification and Solid-State Transformations of Metals and Alloys describes solidification and the industrial problems presented when manufacturing structural parts by casting, or semi-products for forging, in order to obtain large, flat or specifically shaped parts. Solidification follows the nucleation and growth model, which will also be applied in solid-state transformations, such as those taking place because of changes in solubility and allotropy or changes produced by recrystallization. It also explains the heat treatments that, through controlled heating, holding and cooling, allow the metals to have specific structures and properties. It also describes the correct interpretation of phase diagrams so the reader can comprehend the behaviour of iron, aluminium, copper, lead, tin, nickel, titanium, etc. and the alloys between them or with other metallic or metalloid elements. This book can be used by graduate and undergraduate students, as well as physicists, chemists and engineers who wish to study the subject of Metallic Materials and Physical Metallurgy, specifically industrial applications where casting of metals and alloys, as well as heat treatments are relevant to the quality assurance of manufacturing processes. It will be especially useful for readers with little to no knowledge on the subject, and who are looking for a book that addresses the fundamentals of manufacturing, treatment and properties of metals and alloys.

Recent Trends in Cold-Formed Steel Construction discusses advancements in an area that has become an important construction material for buildings. The book addresses cutting-edge new technologies and design methods using cold-formed steel as a main structural material, and provides technical guidance on how to design and build sustainable and energy-efficient cold-formed steel buildings. Part One of the book introduces the codes, specifications, and design methods for cold-formed steel structures, while Part Two provides computational analysis of cold-formed steel structures. Part Three examines the structural performance of cold-formed steel buildings and reviews the thermal performance, acoustic performance, fire protection, floor vibrations, and blast resistance of these buildings, with a final section reviewing innovation and sustainability in cold-formed steel construction.

Iron Ore: Mineralogy, Processing and Environmental Issues summarizes recent, key research on the characterization of iron ores, including important topics such as beneficiation (separation and refining), agglomeration (e.g., production of pellets or powders), blast furnace technology for smelting, and environmental issues relating to its production. The text is an ideal reference on the topic during a time when iron ore production has increased significantly, driven by increasing demand from countries such as India and China.

The POSCO Strategy brings to life one of the world's great industrial success stories. Expertly told by William T. Hogan, an accomplished commentator on the global steel industry, the work traces the meteoric rise of South Korea's Pohang Iron and Steel Company and the incredible impact it has had on this small agrarian country. In a mere quarter of a century POSCO has grown to become the largest steel company in the world and has dragged South Korea into the industrial age. The book not only provides a blueprint for the world's steel industry but offers an incredible case study to students of modern Asian economic history seeking to understand how a non-industrialized economy can be so dramatically modernized by the development of a single industry.

This book examines the recent performance of the US steel industry and related policy issues, including the Bush Administration Section 201 initiative and measures in Congress addressing other aspects of problems in the steel industry. The question of 'legacy costs' has emerged as a key issue amid efforts to improve conditions within the US steel industry. Legacy costs are pension and health care benefit provisions of steel worker contracts, especially for retirees, which provide benefits above and beyond related public entitlements and which are funded by earnings of steel companies. This new book describes the issue, with some statistical data included. Congress; Steel: Legacy Cost Issue; Index.

First book to discuss the analysis of structural steel connections by Finite Element Analysis--which provides fast, efficient, and flexible checking of these vital structural components The analysis of steel structures is complex--much more so than the analysis of similar concrete structures. There are no universally accepted rules for the analysis of connections in steel structures or the analysis of the stresses transferred from one connection to another. This book presents a general approach to steel connection analysis and check, which is the result of independent research that began more than fifteen years ago. It discusses the problems of connection analysis and describes a generally applicable methodology, based on Finite Element Analysis, for analyzing the connections in steel structures. That methodology has been implemented in software successfully, providing a fast, automatic, and flexible route to the design and analysis of the connections in steel structures. Steel Connection Analysis explains several general methods which have been researched and programmed during many years, and that can be used to tackle the problem of connection analysis in a very general way, with a limited and automated computational effort. It also covers several problems related to steel connection analysis automation. Uses Finite Element Analysis to discuss the analysis of structural steel connections Analysis is applicable to all connections in steel structures The methodology is the basis of the commercially successful CSE connection analysis software Analysis is fast and flexible Structural engineers, fabricators, software developing firms, university researchers, and advanced students of civil and structural engineering will all benefit from Steel Connection Analysis.

Mineral-rich-post-independent African countries rely on their extractive industries for economic growth and development. The extraction of these resources generates more curses than blessings--raising questions as to whether the sector provides an appropriate vehicle for economic growth. To balance this gap, regional policy makers and international counterparts have engaged in large-scale reforms of the mining sector. This has led to the establishment of spaces of exclusion and further marginalization as new actors introduced into the sector interact one with the other to pursue and protect their interests.

This study explains how businessmen in the German iron and steel industry managed their enterprises, dealt with their customers, and acted in their relations with state and society during a period of war, revolution, and economic crisis. Because this industry occupied a central position in Germany during the inflation, the author's investigation illuminates certain crucial aspects of the Weimar Republic that have hitherto been relatively unexplored. The author explains how heavy industry--and particularly the iron and steel industry-successfully took advantage of shortages of raw materials and of inflation to gain the upper hand over customers in the manufacturing industries. He notes that it proved able to resist government and consumer efforts to change and control policies affecting heavy industry and, finally, to lead the counterattack against labor's greatest gain in the Revolution of 1918, the eight-hour day. Although the importance of iron and steel to the German economy declined in relation to that of more advanced sectors of the economy, its highly concentrated character, able leadership, and importance to the war and reconstruction efforts gave it advantages in reconstituting its power within the business community and the Weimar state. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The history of Krupp is the history of modern Germany. No company symbolized the best and worst of that history more than the famous steel and arms maker. In this book, Harold James tells the story of the Krupp family and its industrial empire between the early nineteenth century and the present, and analyzes its transition from a family business to one owned by a nonprofit foundation.

Krupp founded a small steel mill in 1811, which established the basis for one of the largest and most important companies in the world by the end of the century. Famously loyal to its highly paid workers, it rejected an exclusive focus on profit, but the company also played a central role in the armament of Nazi Germany and the firm's head was convicted as a war criminal at Nuremberg. Yet after the war Krupp managed to rebuild itself and become a symbol of Germany once again--this time open, economically successful, and socially responsible.

Books on Krupp tend to either denounce it as a diabolical enterprise or celebrate its technical ingenuity. In contrast, James presents a balanced account, showing that the owners felt ambivalent about the company's military connection even while becoming more and more entangled in Germany's aggressive politics during the imperial era and the Third Reich.

By placing the story of Krupp and its owners in a wide context, James also provides new insights into the political, social, and economic history of modern Germany.

Since Corby became the site of a new iron, steel & tube works in 1933, the village of 1,500 has grown into a new torn of 60,000. Many of the families that arrived came from north of the border and Corby became known as 'Little Scotland'. Almost 30 million tons of steel were produced in the forty-six-year life of what was once the largest plant of its type in Europe. The cost of producing steel from low-grade local ore spelled the end of the works once British Steel Corporation had built large plants with deepwater docking facilities, using high-grade imported ore. Once the shutdown was complete, work soon began on demolishing the plant and changing the face of the town that was, until 1980, totally reliant on one industry. The regeneration of the area, with the help of many millions of pounds from the Government, has been Corby pull itself back from becoming a possible ghost town. This book is a collection of images from inside The Works, showing scenes that could not be generally seen by the public. It provides an inside look into the works and is a record of an industry that is no more in the Northamptonshire countryside.

This is a comprehensive study of one of the most startling examples of dollar diplomacy--the effort of the United States and the United Kingdom to monopolize the free world's supply of uranium and thorium during and immediately following World War II. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Firth Brown company was formed in 1930 after the amalgamation of Thomas Firth & Sons and John Brown & Co. Known throughout the world, their products were exported to all five continents. Both companies were at the forefront of technological development and they combined to form one of Sheffield's largest employers.