Rene V. M. Perrin (ISS)
AIME Honorary Membership in
1961
Rene Victor Marie Perrin was born in Grenoble, France, in 1893. He entered Ecole Polytechnique, then the Corps des Mines, as Engineer. In 1920, Dr. Perrin left the Corps des Mines and joined Ugine, advancing steadily to his present post of President and Chairman of the Board.
The manufacture of special steels has been his main interest. In 1932, he developed a new steelmaking process by violently mixing liquid metal with special liquid synthetic slags, in order to multiply contacting points and obtain rapid reactions, thus initiating "quick metallurgy". His research is largely responsible for current trends in steelmaking in such areas as oxygen blasting, powder blowing, multiplying contacting surfaces, and others. The Ugine-Perrin processes are also applied to ferroalloys for quick production of low carbon ferro-chromium and ferro-nickel.
Along another line, observations on the effect of slags on furnace lining led him to speak, in 1934, of the great importance in geology of diffusions of chemical elements through solid rock, and to state that granites evolved by replacement in situ in pre-existing rocks and did not originate from magmas. This theory, now generally accepted, has resulted in the word, "granitization."