Fridolin Reiser

Grave of Fridolin Reiser at Leoben Central Cemetery (May 2018)

Fridolin Reiser (born March 16, 1843 in Gammertingen , † January 16, 1909 in Leoben ) was a German-Austrian mining engineer and metallurgist .

Life

Heinrich Reiser's son studied with Peter Tunner at the Bergakademie in Leoben from 1861 to 1865 and then worked as a surveyor . From a study trip to Sireuil to see Pierre-Émile Martin , who in 1864 had succeeded in developing a new type of steel blast furnace in collaboration with the German engineer Carl Wilhelm Siemens , Reiser brought technical know-how back to Styria at first hand.

As the smeltery manager of the cast steel factory in Kapfenberg , he immediately began his work in 1868 with the construction of a new melting unit, the first Siemens-Martin furnace in the German-speaking area. In 1876 he invented the heated clay attachment on the mold , a process that is still used today in ingot casting . Reiser summarized his metallurgical research in 1881 in the standard work The Hardening of Steel in Theory and Practice , which until 1932 was repeatedly published and translated into numerous translations. Reiser played a major role in the technical expansion of the Austrian steel industry and in improving its production.

From 1872 Reiser worked for the Innerberger Main Union , from 1881 for the Österreichisch-Alpinen-Montan-Gesellschaft and from 1894 for Gebr. Böhler & Co. AG. In 1898 he was made a mountain ridge, in 1908, at the end of his professional career, an upper mountain ridge. Reiser is considered a pioneer in the field of crucible cast steel. For the Böhler-Werke he developed, among other things, Rapid-Stahl, a high-speed steel that came onto the market in 1900 and was far superior to the tool steel previously used in mechanical engineering .

The municipality of Kapfenberg has made Fridolin Reiser an honorary citizen for his services to the international reputation of the local steel industry; in addition, a street bears his name.

literature

• C.-H. Colshorn:  Reiser, Fridolin. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 9, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-7001-1483-4 , p. 57.