what is wootz steel in 19 century
Answers
The development of ancient Indian wootz steel is reviewed. Wootz is the anglicized version of ukku in the languages of the states of Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, a term denoting steel. Literary accounts suggest that the steel from the southern part of the Indian subcontinent was exported to Europe, China, the Arab world and the Middle East.
Though an ancient material, wootz steel also fulfills the description of an advanced material, since it is an ultra-high carbon steel exhibiting properties such as superplasticity and high impact hardness and held sway over a millennium in three continents- a feat unlikely to be surpassed by advanced materials of the current era.
Wootz deserves a place in the annals of western science due to the stimulus provided by the study of this material in the 18th and 19th centuries to modern metallurgical advances, not only in the metallurgy of iron and steel, but also to the development of physical metallurgy in general and metallography in particular.
Some of the recent experiments in studying wootz by re-constructing composition, microstructure and mechanical behaviour, along with some recent archaeological evidence, are described.
Wootz, High-carbon Steel, South India, Superplasticity, Crucibles, Analyses