Abstract
NOTWITHSTANDING the industrial depression the activities of the Research Department of Metropolitan-Vickers have not been in any way curtailed. The research on the properties of steel at high temperatures is being continued, particular attention being paid to an examination of the combined influence of time and temperature on the changes of physical properties. The investigations of carbon steels have raised difficult problems in connexion with carbide spheroidisation as well as the obscure phenomenon of embrittlement shown by some of them. The results already obtained have been useful in determining suitable working stresses in advance of present practice. The general problems of the corrosion of metals and methods for their protection have been under continuous investigation. Experiments have been made on the corrosion of aluminium alloys when in contact with beverages and food stuffs. The importance of studying engineering noise problems is shown by the fact that the acoustics laboratory has been more than doubled in size. Using the methods of continuous evacuation developed in the Metropolitan-Vickers laboratories, rapid progress has been made in the technique required for the production of high vacua and its many applications to engineering problems. An X-ray set specially adapted for studying engineering problems has been developed and standardised and is now on the market. Progress has been made in inventing methods of protecting zinc and zinc base alloys by means of electro-deposited coatings. Special solutions have been discovered for cleaning, pickling and plating base metals of this kind. Accelerated corrosion tests have been devised which enable the protective value of different thicknesses of deposit to be rapidly determined.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Research Work of the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. Ltd. Nature 131, 126 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131126a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131126a0