Background
August Brinell was born on June 19, 1849, in Bringetofta, Jönköping County, Sweden, the son of Johannes Månsson, a farmer, and Katarina Jonasdotter.
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativägen 4A, 114 18 Stockholm, Sweden
Johan August Brinell was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1902.
Sweden
Johan August Brinell received the Polhem Medal in 1900.
Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), 297 Euston Rd, Fitzrovia, London NW1 3AQ, United Kingdom
In 1907, August Brinell was awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal.
engineer metallurgist scientist
August Brinell was born on June 19, 1849, in Bringetofta, Jönköping County, Sweden, the son of Johannes Månsson, a farmer, and Katarina Jonasdotter.
In 1871, August Brinell graduated from the technical school in Borås.
Brinell also received the honor of Doctor Honoris causa at the University of Upsala in 1907, in recognition of his researches on the metallurgy of iron.
August Brinell was employed in the Swedish iron industry for some fifty years. From 1882 to 1903 he was chief engineer of the Fagersta Ironworks (now Fagersta Stainless AB), where his most original scientific work was done. He was chief engineer of Jernkontoret, an iron industry association, from 1903 to 1914, and chairman of the board of Fagersta from 1915 to 1923.
Brinell’s first studies at Fagersta, which were concerned with changes of the internal structure of steel as it was heated or cooled, compared the appearance of steel fracture surfaces in a very large number of experiments.
In 1885 he published his classical paper on the textural changes of steel during heating and cooling, which excited an intense interest. His establishing of the critical point of steel and its importance in steel-treating is fundamental. Some subsequent results concerning the behavior of steel at heating and cooling were exhibited at Stockholm in 1897, and in a more complete form, containing much useful information as to chemical composition and hardening of steel, at the World's Exhibition in Paris in 1900, where they occasioned a considerable sensation.
At the Paris Exhibition Brinell also first presented his world-renowned method of hardness determination by means of a steel ball. An important work was done by him in elucidating the possibilities of using the North-Swedish ores in the Swedish iron manufacture. He also produced important work regarding the electrical blast-furnace, as well as regarding the utilization of peat.
Johan August Brinell also was a member of the (British) Iron and Steel Institute.
August Brinell possessed a great personal charm; he was very unpretentious and simple-minded, and was lamented by a great number of personal friends.
In 1880, August Brinell married Selma Josefina Elisabeth Nilsson, by whom he had five children.