Alexandre Pourcel was a French steelmaker who won the

Bessemer Gold Medal The Bessemer Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) "for outstanding services to the steel industry, to the inventor or designer of any significant innovation in the process employed in the manufact ...

in 1909. He developed ferro-manganese and showed his work at the 1878 World's Fair, where it interested

Robert Hadfield Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield, 1st Baronet FRS (28 November 1858 in Sheffield – 30 September 1940 in Surrey) was an English metallurgist, noted for his 1882 discovery of manganese steel, one of the first steel alloys. He also invented silicon ...

so much that he invented

Mangalloy Mangalloy, also called manganese steel or Hadfield steel, is an alloy steel containing an average of around 13% manganese. Mangalloy is known for its high impact strength and resistance to abrasion once in its work-hardened state. Material proper ...

as a result.

Life

Pourcel was born in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

in 1841. Pourcel studied at the Ecole des Mines in St. Etienne, now

École nationale supérieure des mines de Saint-Étienne École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

. Pourcel worked all his life at the Forges de Terrenoire or located in (now part of

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; Franco-Provençal: ''Sant-Etiève''), also written St. Etienne, is a city and the prefecture of the Loire département, in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regi ...

). In 1909 Pourcel was awarded an Honorary Membership in the

AIME Aime (; ) is a former commune in the Savoie ''département'' in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Aime-la-Plagne. Pourcel died in 1934.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pourcel, Alexandre French inventors French metallurgists Bessemer Gold Medal 1841 births 1934 deaths