Metallurgy Question

How likely is it for someone in the ancient world to stumble upon a method of casting iron and steel to late 18th century quality standards?

And what would be the consequences?
 
I know the Chinese could cast iron centuries before then, though clearly not on an industrial scale. Are we talking quantity ro quality here?
 

mowque

Banned
How likely is it for someone in the ancient world to stumble upon a method of casting iron and steel to late 18th century quality standards?

And what would be the consequences?

You mean like with a Bessemer like process?
 
According to the wiki on the Bessemer process the Chinese indeed had a "partial decarbonization" process:

Historian Robert Hartwell points out that the 11th century Chinese of the Song Dynasty innovated a "partial decarbonization" method of repeated forging of cast iron under a cold blast.[4] The historians Joseph Needham and Wertime acknowledged that this was the predecessor to the Bessemer process of making steel. This process was first described by the prolific scholar and polymath government official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) in 1075 when he visited Cizhou.[4] Hartwell states that perhaps the earliest center where this was practiced was the great iron-production district along the Henan-Hebei border during the 11th century.
It only takes you so far, however, and will probably not be pure enough to produce bridge and building-worthy steel.

There's also the older Cementation Process, which is expensive and requires craploads of coke, but makes good steel.

Full-on Bessemer-style mass production probably requires some level of industrialization for the blowers and production and chemistry knowledge for the dolomite coating and understanding of the purification process. Maybe China (possibly Japan?) can pull this off by the *Renaissance with a lot of wankish luck on the Alchemy front, but I doubt it could appear anywhere else before near OTL.

Ancient world? That's Bat Country.

Even a Romewank will by necessity require several centuries past OTL's fall...and a drastic shift in culture/economy/education/interests.
 
You can certainly speed it up. For instance the Catalan forges can be switched to a coldblast process. If you push you can probably start partial steel by around the 1000s. Even I'm not pushing it that fast but once you start having a better method you can have people experimenting. It's not impossible with certain PoD's to have a Reverb Furnace experimented with and then an accidental Bessmer Process developing centuries ahead of time.

In fact my plan is something along those lines. Of course, the genesis is actually going to come from the Indian contact as soon as my Alt-Crusades are over. After all, those funky looking traders in the southern ME ports? Oh, they're Alt-Cholas...?
 
The problem is that making steel of that quality generally requires really big forges, possibly really hot forges, and really big air movement methods (bellows). While these are certainly in the reach of, say, the Romans, it's not really something that one stumbles on accidentally - someone would have to be trying.
 
You also forget that to make steel and cast iron on industrial scale, you need both the mines to produce and the infrastructure to support moving massive amounts of coal and iron ore.

Before the invention of steam-powered draining, mines could only go so deep and production suffered. Before the massive construction of canals in England (and later railroads) you lack the infrastructure to move enough coal and iron to places with water or wind power to supply the power needed both for bellowing and for the manual work of moving and working the iron.
 
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