Abstract
AT the meeting of the above Institution, which has just taken place, several papers of scientific and practical interest were read and discussed. They may be broadly divided into two classes, viz. 1st, those relating to the production of iron and steel, from the ore, and the qualities of the material when produced; and 2nd, the various applications to which steel has been put in recent times. The latter class of papers, at the recent meeting, dealt principally with the use of steel in the manufacture of ordnance, small arms, projectiles, and gun-carriages, and the papers, some of which were of great interest, will be reserved for consideration in a separate notice. Amongst the papers dealing with the manufacture of steel we may notice specially a memoir by Herr Paul Kupelweiser of Witkowitz, in Austria, on recent progress attained in the use of the basic process at the works with which he is connected. This process, which has been frequently referred to in NATURE, seems—probably on account of the quality of the ores met with—to have been adopted more frequently in Continental steel works than in our own country, for according to Herr Kupelweiser's summary, no less than thirty works in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Russia, have acquired licences under the Thomas patents, the greater number of these being already at work; while the remainder are adapting their old plant, or erecting new works with the view to its immediate introduction. The weak point of the process hitherto has undoubtedly been the want of durability in the refractory linings of the converters, and on this point the author states that, in spite of numerous trials with other materials, the works with which he is acquainted still use the materials originally proposed by Mr. Thomas, viz. either the basic bricks or the shrunk lime and tar mixture. At Witkowitz, however, a new material has been used containing a comparatively small percentage of silica, and the quality of the bricks manufactured from this has been found to be materially improved. Ground brick mixed with 5 to 10 per cent, of tar is also used at many works for lining as well as for repairs. Basic tuyères have been tried in many places, but are not commonly used; but the author states that magnesia obtained by precipitation from chloride of magnesia by milk of lime appears, from experiments made on a small scale, to be a promising material for making tuyères. As regards the quality of the steel he makes the following remarkable statement:—“The basic process, as regards the quality of its products, is not only completely equal to the acid process, but even, in my opinion, superior to the latter.” As a specimen of the excellent quality of the mild steel manufactured at Witkowitz the author exhibited a locomotive boiler tube made of this material, which had been expanded cold by means of a tube expander from 9 to 17 millimetres, on an original diameter of 48 millimetres, equal to an extension of from 20 to 36 per cent, on the periphery of the material, without even splitting at the line of weld.
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The Autumn Meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute . Nature 24, 583–584 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024583d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024583d0