Axel Gustaf Emanuel Hultgren, (November 16, 1886–May 15, 1974) was a Swedish metallurgist

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

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Hultgren is perhaps most famous for his work on tungsten

Tungsten

Tungsten , also known as wolfram , is a chemical element with the chemical symbol W and atomic number 74.A hard, rare metal under standard conditions when uncombined, tungsten is found naturally on Earth only in chemical compounds. It was identified as a new element in 1781, and first isolated as...

 steels, and the transformation of Austenite

Austenite

Austenite, also known as gamma phase iron, is a metallic non-magnetic allotrope of iron or a solid solution of iron, with an alloying element. In plain-carbon steel, austenite exists above the critical eutectoid temperature of ; other alloys of steel have different eutectoid temperatures...

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Hultgren was born near Kalmar

Kalmar

Kalmar is a city in Småland in the south-east of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 62,767 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of 233,776 inhabitants .From the thirteenth to the...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 and studied metallurgy at the Royal Institute of Technology

Royal Institute of Technology

The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...

 in Stockholm, Sweden. Following his MSc and some temporary positions in teaching, industry and a research visit in Berlin under Prof. H. Hanemann, Hultgren joined SKF

SKF

SKF, Svenska Kullagerfabriken AB , later AB SKF, is a Swedish bearing company founded in 1907, supplying bearings, seals, lubrication and lubrication systems, maintenance products, mechatronics products, power transmission products and related services globally.-History:The company was founded on...

 bearing company in Gothenburg as a manager for the heat treatment and later as a metallurgist. In 1920 he published his monograph on tungsten steels. Later, in 1937 he became the first Metallography Professor at the Institute.

His focus was combine experimental methods and metallographic observation with theoretical reasoning, in a deductive way.

Hultgren was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences

Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences

The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences or Kungl. Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien , founded in 1919 by King Gustaf V, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...

 in 1930 and of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...

in 1945.

Selected works

• Hultgren, A., 1920, A metallographic study of tungsten steels, John Wiley & Sons.
• Hultgren, A., 1947, Isothermal transformation of Austenite. Transaction of the ASM, 39, 915-989