History and Production of Nickel and Nickel Alloys

This chapter provides a brief history of nickel and its alloys and describes important developments in their manufacturing. Nickel base alloys have been manufactured commercially since the turn of the 20th century and continues actively to this day. The advent of Argon Oxygen Decarburization (AOD) and Vacuum Arc Melting processes enabled the production of low carbon, wrought alloys and the use of electroslag remelting process resulted in low-sulfur alloys.