X-ray automatically checks hand grenade fuses
✍ Scribed by Rho
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1944
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 45 KB
- Volume
- 237
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
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✦ Synopsis
X-Ray Automatically Checks Hand Grenade Fuses.--An automatic x-ray machine to accurately .check the proper amount of powder in hand grenade fuses, essential to prevent explosions premature to the set time, has been devised by General Electric engineers and is now being used to test thousands of fuses daily. This machine, the first of its kind in the country, will automatically check fuses at the rate of 4ooo an hour.
Each grenade fuse, slightly larger than the physician's thermometer and similar in appearance except that it is made of metal, contains two powder charges and a slow burning fuse. If in manufacture too small a charge is placed in any of these elements, the grenade is liable to explode as soon as the soldier releases his grip on the handle. When this trouble was detected, the Army called on all x-ray laboratories for help and the machine General Electric perfected is the only automatic one so far devised.
For checking, the fuses are set upright on a movable belt. This passes through the machine, allowing the perpendicular beam of a ioo,ooo volt x-ray to penetrate each fuse and cast its glow on a fluorescent screen, above which is a phototube of "electric eye." So long as the fluorescent glow remains constant, nothing happens and the fuses pass through. However, should a fuse with a light powder charge pass over the x-ray beam the phototube detects the change in the fluorescent glow, automatically rings a bell, flashes a red light, places a dab of red paint on the top of the fuse and records the "dud" graphically on a meter chart. This four way check makes it impossible for a bad fuse to get by without detection.
When the fuses arrive they are packed in wooden boxes, each containing 2oo. In three minutes they have been unpacked, x-rayed and are back in the boxes ready for shipment. R. H. O.