Babcock & Wilcox

The company was founded in 1867 in Providence, Rhode Island by partners Stephen Wilcox and George Babcock to manufacture and market Wilcox’s patented water-tube boiler.[2] B&W's list of innovations and firsts include the world’s first installed utility boiler (1881); manufacture of boilers to power New York City’s first subway (1902); first pulverized coal power plant (1918); design and manufacture of components for USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine (1953–55); the first supercritical pressure coal-fired boiler (1957); design and supply of reactors for the first U.S. built nuclear-powered surface ship, NS Savannah (1961).[3]

The company provided design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and facilities management services to nuclear, renewable, fossil power, industrial and government customers worldwide. B&W's boilers supply more than 300,000 megawatts of installed capacity in over 90 countries around the world. During World War II, over half of the US Navy fleet was powered by Babcock & Wilcox boilers.

The company has its headquarters in Akron, Ohio. It has major operations in Lancaster, Ohio; Cambridge, Ontario Canada; Esbjerg, Denmark; and Paruzzaro, Italy.[4]

On June 30, 2015, Babcock & Wilcox completed a spinoff from BWX Technologies, its former parent company. The two companies began trading separately on July 1.[5]

B&W employs approximately 4,000 people.[4]

B&W relocated its corporate headquarters from Barberton, Ohio to Akron, Ohio on December 30, 2019.

The Babcock & Wilcox nuclear steam generator is seen at the company's plant at Barberton, Ohio prior to shipment via the Penn Central Railroad to a Duke Energy site in Oconee, S.C. This generator can convert more than 10,000,000 lb (4,536,000 kg) of water per hour into steam.

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) is based in Akron, Ohio and provides engineering, design, construction and manufacturing services to the fossil and renewable power generation sectors and to heavy industry worldwide. B&W and its subsidiaries have facilities in Ohio; Wisconsin; Arona, Italy; Beijing, China; Esbjerg, Denmark; and technology licensees around the world.[6]

The old B&W company logo, showing the world as an Aeolipile.

Babcock & Wilcox began in 1867 with one patent. When Stephen Wilcox first avowed that “there must be a better way” to safely generate power, he and George Babcock responded with the design for the first inherently safe water-tube boiler.

Babcock & Wilcox Co. works, Bayonne, New Jersey, circa 1919

1913 Babcock & Wilcox boiler section

• In 1867, Providence, Rhode Island, residents Stephen Wilcox and his partner George Herman Babcock patented the Babcock & Wilcox Non-Explosive Boiler, which used water filled tubes and de-nucleate boiling to generate steam more safely than either under-fire or fire-tube boilers. The boilers more safely generated higher pressure steam and was more efficient (as an energy to steam converter) than existing designs.[7]
• In 1891, Babcock & Wilcox Ltd is established as a separate United Kingdom company, to be responsible for all sales outside the US and Cuba.[8]
• In 1898, Robert Jurenka and Alois Seidl signed an agreement with the British division of Babcock & Wilcox Ltd to make the Berlin, Germany Babcock sales office into a subsidiary of the British company; a factory in Oberhausen in the Ruhr district made the boiler designed by the American engineers.[9]
• In 1902, the New York City's first subway is powered by B&W boilers.[10]
• During 1907 and 1909 Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet were powered by B&W Boilers.
• In 1923, both Babcock & Wilcox Ltd and The Babcock & Wilcox Company buy into The Goldie & McCulloch Company Ltd of Cambridge, Ontario, to form Babcock-Wilcox & Goldie-McCulloch Ltd in Canada.[11]
• In 1929 B&W installs the world's first commercial size recovery boiler using the magnesium bisulfite process in Quebec, Canada.[12]
• Between 1941 and 1945 B&W designed and delivered 4,100 marine boilers for combat and merchant ships, including 95 percent of the US fleet in Tokyo Bay at Japanese surrender.
• In 1942, the company developed the cyclone furnace.
• Between 1943 and 1945 B&W provided components, materials and process development for Manhattan Project.[7]
• Between 1949 and 1952 B&W provided the 8 boilers for the SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever constructed.
• Between 1953 and 1955 B&W designed and fabricated components for USS Nautilus (SSN-571), world’s first nuclear-powered submarine.
• In 1961 B&W designed and supplied reactors for world’s first commercial nuclear ship NS Savannah.
• In 1962 B&W designed and furnished reactor systems for B&W's first commercial reactor, Indian Point, using HEU 233.
• In 1967 the name of Babcock-Wilcox & Goldie-McCulloch Ltd is changed to Babcock & Wilcox Canada Ltd.[11]
• In 1975 B&W designed and built components for liquid metal fast breeder reactors.
• In 1975 the long term business agreements with the British Babcock & Wilcox Ltd were ended. Subsequently, the British company was renamed Babcock International Group plc.
• In 1978 B&W designed and built the nuclear reactor that was involved in the Three Mile Island accident.
• In 1999 B&W was awarded the contract to develop fuel cells and steam reforming for US Navy.
• On February 22, 2000, B&W filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in part as a result of thousands of claims for personal injury due to prolonged exposure to asbestos and asbestos fibers. Claims included asbestosis, lung cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma. As a condition of emerging from bankruptcy, B&W created a trust fund to compensate victims, but for amounts far less than settlements paid in individual personal injury lawsuits.[13]
• After B&W emerged from bankruptcy in 2006, B&W and BWX Technologies, both subsidiaries of the McDermott International, Inc., merged on 26 November 2007 to form The Babcock & Wilcox Companies, headed by President John Fees. The old company logo was changed.
• On June 10, 2009, B&W unveiled B&W Modular Nuclear Energy, LLC (B&W MNE).[14] On the same day, B&W MNE announced its plans to design and develop the B&W mPower reactor, a modular, scalable nuclear reactor. The B&W mPower reactor design is a 125 megawatt, passively safe Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR) (a Generation III reactor) with a below-ground containment structure.[15] The reactor is set to be manufactured in a factory, shipped by rail, then buried underground.[16][17]
• On May 12, 2010, B&W announced that it and its subsidiaries would be spun off from its parent company, McDermott International, Inc.[18] The headquarters moved from Lynchburg, Virginia to Charlotte.[19] and the company became The Babcock & Wilcox Company.
• On August 2, 2010, B&W began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as BWC.[20]
• On July 1, 2015, Babcock & Wilcox and BWX Technologies, its former parent headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia, began trading separately.[5]
• On September 24, 2018, Babcock & Wilcox announced that it would move its corporate headquarters from Charlotte to Akron, Ohio into space formerly occupied by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company prior to its move to a new building nearby.

• On December 30, 2019, Babcock & Wilcox relocated its corporate headquarters from Barberton, Ohio to Akron, Ohio.

• Combustion Engineering
• Westinghouse Electric (1886)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Babcock & Wilcox Ltd.

• Official website
• Steam, Its Generation and Use by Babcock & Wilcox company Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation