Abstract
THE third edition of this well-known treatise has been greatly improved, and it is now almost indispensable to the steel metallurgist, on account of the detailed records of the heat treatment and properties of a very wide range of industrial steels which it contains. The specifications under which the steels are grouped are mainly those of the American Society of Automotive Engineers, but it is not difficult to correlate them with the corresponding specifications used in Great Britain. English readers will find a greater obstacle in the fact that all stresses are expressed in pounds (instead of tons) per square inch and all temperatures on the Fahrenheit scale, and it could be wished that an English edition might be prepared in conformity with metallurgical practice in Britain. However, a table of equivalents can always be kept at hand when the book is consulted, which is likely to be frequently. A new chapter on electric furnaces for heat treatment is included, and will prove of special interest, as it is not generally known that such furnaces have come extensively into use in the United States, in spite of the increased cost of operation. This section, which is fully illustrated, is very valuable. The theoretical side of the subj ect receives much less attention than the practical, but the microscopic structure is fully discussed, the photographs being good and in some instances excellent. It may be remarked that the wonderful properties of zirconium steel, of which much was heard during the War, have proved to be mythical, and the paragraphs which the author quotes from two cautious investigators, proving a certain effect in removing impurities, represent the truth concerning this element much more closely than the exaggerated statements which have sometimes appeared.
Steel and its Heat Treatment.
D. K.
Bullens
By. Third edition, rewritten and reset. Pp. xii + 564. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1927.) 25s. net.
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Steel and its Heat Treatment . Nature 122, 397 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122397b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122397b0