1940: Metallurgy

Steel Mills.

Organized metallurgical work on a plane which might be termed 'productive research' in the steel mills has been probably the most important development of the year. This was started some few years ago by some of the larger steel companies in creating a staff of metallurgical observers. To that staff largely was encharged the problem of making sure the steel produced came up to the standard set by the metallurgical department. The observers are usually recruited from the graduates of technical schools and assigned to watch the various processes in the making of steel. Observers are usually not responsible to the metallurgical department but to the operating department. Each department of a plant has a departmental metallurgist. These are graduates from the younger group of metallurgical observers. The department metallurgists, such as the open-hearth or the bar mill metallurgists, are under the main or chief mill metallurgist who reports directly to the chief metallurgist of the plant. Each department metallurgist is held responsible for the metallurgical practice in his department. It is the duty of the observers, by checking additions, temperatures before and after pouring, slag conditions, lime-silica ratio, ingot molds, and numerous other details however small, to report on each step. This independence makes their work doubly effective.

In this manner the steel mill is able to insure the output of a product that definitely fills some commercial need, and the metallurgical practices of the mills are keyed to that primary purpose. In the past year or so, however, the organization has gone much further. Competitive mills are now more willing to exchange technical information and metallurgical experience. Committees on metallurgical practice for the industry have been set up, and these, in turn, are today cooperating fully with the Government to insure the best products for the national defense needs.

Codifying Types of Steel.

The industry is now endeavoring to correlate and codify the chemistries of steel which are now being made, and to determine which steels are made in reasonable quantities, as well as the purpose for which these steels are used. The objective is to advertise the steels which are made in significant quantities or which, for strategic reasons, are significant. It is proposed to publish the list under chemical designation, physical designation, or use designation, dependent upon the method of ordering now customary. This will, when adopted by the whole industry, provide an unbiased method of selecting a steel for a purpose and prove extremely useful to the operating and technical men of the steel industry.

An immediate objective, which is promised solution more expeditiously through this system of cooperating, is the development of a steel that will respond better to machining, hence permit higher speeds or heavier feeds. Improvements have been effected in heat treating, in the processing of armor plate, in the development of homogeneous light armor, and other metallurgical processes. War requirements have also increased the demand for so-called rustless steel, some kinds of which are now being produced in volume sufficient to establish them as basic grades. Thus the metallurgists in our mills are increasingly aware of the importance of concentrating sales effort, production control, and plant research on the relatively few steels which make up the large part of the tonnage manufactured and consumed, rather than scattering this research work, production and sales effort over a wide group of steels relatively insignificant from a tonnage standpoint when considered for the industry as a whole. The necessity for concentrating research can be illustrated by the fact that no man knows all the properties and possibilities of a simple carbon steel, and to learn them will take years of painstaking effort. As a matter of fact, many of the small tonnage items are metallurgical 'fads' and are better replaced by more common compositions. Others are useful tools and will remain as such. This is certain to bring about a great improvement in the uniformity and quality of tonnage steels, to the great benefit of the larger group of consumers.

Effect of the War on Metallurgy.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it does not always predetermine the trend of discovery, as the human mind cannot fix the results of the test tube. The war in Europe, however, has had a tremendous impress upon metallurgical trends. This being a mechanized war and the airplane requirements proving so large, some effort has to be made to conserve raw materials and to improve the fighting machine. The British Standards Institute prepared aircraft material specifications, and attempted to coordinate specifications for steel and non-ferrous materials to facilitate supply. It prepared standards for metal containers for the various industries to provide for the economic use of materials and machinery and issued some forty-five specifications in connection with air raid precautions for the Ministry of Home Security. As soon as the new defense program for the United States had been voted by Congress in mid-summer, a like effort was initiated in this country to standardize and simplify specifications. As usual, this was concomitant with a serious report of a rubber substitute, an increased interest in electric furnaces, because of the anticipated demand for alloy steels, and similar adjustments of industry to anticipated war requirements.

The metal industries of Germany have long been a part of their totalitarian government. Specifications were rigidly fitted into the war's requirements. The resulting 'blitzkrieg' has not only affected politics but the science of metallurgy as well, and as the concluding months of 1940 approached some idea of what these are becomes a little more apparent to the war makers.

Strategic Metallurgical Materials in the Defense Program.

Certain strategic materials are not available to us in sufficient quantity from our domestic sources.

Congress made appropriations to purchase strategic and critical materials. Purchases were made of tungsten, chromium ore, pig tin, manganese ore, quartz crystal. Plants to produce aluminum and other critical metals have been projected.

For war many special specifications will prevail. Some 660 specifications are listed in 'The Index of U. S. Army and Federal Specifications used by the War Department.' These do incorporate many of the specifications in commercial usage, but the exacting requirements of some war materials, such as combat weapons, make it imperative that the government's requirements be protected by special specifications not generally in common usage. Probably the AN — Aeronautical Specifications and specifications for shell steel are more significant of the latter.

During the year, and undoubtedly for some time to come, the greater effort of metallurgists will be devoted to defense needs. The National Inventors Council, at the request of the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense, had indicated the following new things as most urgent from the standpoint of national defense:

Cement for quickly bonding rubber and metal.

Material to which ice would not adhere, for use on airplane wings, highway surfaces, windshields, etc.

Improvements in methods of aircraft construction, such as flush riveting or spot welding to achieve absolutely smooth external surfaces without introducing serious maintenance problems.

More uniform grades of foundry molding sand, probably synthetic.

Easily operated indicator for temperatures of molten steel, both in the melting furnace and in the pouring ladle.

Temperature measuring device that will give readings from 1,500-3,000° C. and above. Optical or radiation pyrometers, because of the gas atmosphere in the temperature pipes, produce erroneous readings.

Tools for welding structural steel in the field. While welding is now pretty general in shop practice, it is expensive on location jobs.

Boilers which will not accumulate scale.

If cast iron could be developed that would bend under stress rather than burst, it would be the greatest single development in the industry. Such an iron has been made for laboratory tests.

Stainless steel that has a yield point of 150,000 lbs. per square inch. Such a material would be extremely valuable in aircraft construction.

Free machining, heat and wear resisting steel bars suitable for machine gun barrels.

A steel alloy which will cast readily, machine freely, and be acid and heat resisting.

Metal alloy that would resist pitting from electrical arcs.

Small diameter steel wire which would be rustproof without coating and without the expensive stainless process.

Of inestimable value to manufacturers of bearing bronzes would be a material to take the place of tin in bronze alloys.

Soldering flux that will not cause corrosion of soldered parts in service.

An aluminum solder to work as well as common lead solder does on tin.

An economical process for the recovery of manganese from low grade ores.

These are only a few of the problems posed for the organized metallurgical brains of the American industry. The war emergency is directing first attention to these, but other needs, the commercial needs, are legion, and the problems confronting the profession truly warrant such a mass approach to their solution as the newer organization in the industry has provided. (See also CHEMISTRY: New Applications of Metals; MINERALOGY.)