ABSTRACT

The fi rst deliberate attempt to develop an alloy steel was made by Sir Robert Hadfi eld during the 1880s, but most of these materials are products of the twentieth century. Possibly, the greatest advance in this fi eld was made in 1900, when Taylor and White, two engineers with the Bethlehem Steel Company in the USA, introduced the fi rst high-speed steel and so helped to increase the momentum of the Industrial Revolution and, in particular, what has since been known as mass-production .