โ Scribed by George K. Burgess
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
THE object of this investigation was to determine the relation of ingot practi'ce to the properties of rails from such ingots, and in particular to determine the amount of total discard necessary to obltain rails free from piping and segregation above 12 per cent., which has been rolled from steel made in accordance with varying melting, casting and ingot practices.
To that end 35 ingots, made by the converter process at Hadfield's, Sh,effield, England, and cast by the sink-head process with large end uppermost, were shipped to Sparrow's Point, Md., and rolled into rails ; these were compared with I 5 rail ingots made in the ordinary manner with the small end uppermost.
Each sinkhead ingot, of about 5300 lb. w,eight, and deoxidized with aluminum in the mold, represented a separate heat of converter steel, and all the heats and ingots were made in the same manner.
The composition and properties of these ingots were of remarkable uniformity.
The compariso,n ingots, of 7300 lb. each, were from thr'ee separate open-hearth heats, an additional variation being made in the casting and open-hearth practice for each. Five ingots were selected from each of these three heats.
Thus, in reality, comparison was made of four different kinds of steel of very nearly the same composition and physical properties and of two types of ingot form.
The comparison was made by rolling most of the ingots into rails and taking test specimens at each rail cut, as well as from a considerab'le portion of the upper part, in five-foot steps, of the rail blar from each ingot. In this way there was obtained a detailed physical, chemical and metallographic survey of each ingot, and it was possible to exactly delimit the regions of sound and homo-* Communicated by the Director.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
The efficiency of the electro-metallurgical methods now exclusively employed in the production of aluminum, is strikingly shown by the figures of the following tabulation, representing the product of the United States since I882. The first impetus to the industry was given in '-886, when the electri