page_title: Open hearth furnace
hierarchical_section_title: Open hearth furnace
caption_attribution_description: Original image description from the Deutsche FotothekMetallurge für Hüttentechnik
context_page_description: Open hearth furnaces are one of a number of kinds of furnace where excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to produce steel. Since steel is difficult to manufacture due to its high melting point, normal fuels and furnaces were insufficient and the open hearth furnace was developed to overcome this difficulty. Compared to Bessemer steel, which it displaced, its main advantages were that it did not expose the steel to excessive nitrogen, was easier to control, and it permitted the melting and refining of large amounts of scrap iron and steel.
  The open hearth furnace was first developed by German-born engineer Carl Wilhelm Siemens. In 1865, the French engineer Pierre-Émile Martin took out a license from Siemens and first applied his regenerative furnace for making steel. Their process was known as the Siemens–Martin process, and the furnace as an "open-hearth" furnace. Most open hearth furnaces were closed by the early 1990s, not least because of their slow operation, being replaced by the basic oxygen furnace or electric arc furnace.
context_section_description: Open hearth furnaces are one of a number of kinds of furnace where excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to produce steel. Since steel is difficult to manufacture due to its high melting point, normal fuels and furnaces were insufficient and the open hearth furnace was developed to overcome this difficulty.  Compared to Bessemer steel, which it displaced, its main advantages were that it did not expose the steel to excessive nitrogen (which would cause the steel to become brittle), was easier to control, and it permitted the melting and refining of large amounts of scrap iron and steel.
  The open hearth furnace was first developed by German-born engineer Carl Wilhelm Siemens. In 1865, the French engineer Pierre-Émile Martin took out a license from Siemens and first applied his regenerative furnace for making steel. Their process was known as the Siemens–Martin process, and the furnace as an "open-hearth" furnace. Most open hearth furnaces were closed by the early 1990s, not least because of their slow operation, being replaced by the basic oxygen furnace or electric arc furnace.
  Whereas the earliest example of open hearth steelmaking is found about 2000 years ago in the culture of the Haya people, in present day Tanzania, and in Europe in the Catalan forge, invented in Spain in the 8th century, it is usual to confine the term to certain 19th-century and later steelmaking processes, thus excluding bloomeries (including the Catalan forge), finery forges, and puddling furnaces from its application.
caption: Tapping open-hearth furnace, VEB Rohrkombinat Riesa, East Germany, 1982
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