Search Documents

By Paul M. Tyler

MUCH information concerning pegmatites which was thought to be true a few years ago has been proved false, and what is now actually known about some pegmatites is not true of many others. The erratic and seemingly unpredictable structure and variable composition of this class of mineral deposits has been widely emphasized. Even parts of the same pegmatite body exhibit marked differences in texture, mineral composition, width, and attitude. Constructive geological thinking in respect to pegmatites now aims to establish general laws rather than to stress the confusing diversity of features having no special economic significance.

Jan 9, 1953

By W. F. Stowasser

A downdraft traveling grate process to agglomerate pelletized iron ore concentrates has been successfully demonstrated in a pilot plant at Carrollville, Wis. Work there followed several years of development in the Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co. laboratories, and the pilot plant phase was carried out in co-operation with Arthur G. McKee & Co., consultants and engineers to the iron and steel industry. End result of the process is conversion of iron ore concentrates into a form which can easily be transported and smelted in the blast furnace.

Jan 5, 1955

By Howard Eavenson

PRIOR to 1907 nearly all coke was made in beehive ovens, and most of the gas produced was made in the old-style gas retorts, and while there were a few coke plants in southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia and Kentucky operating on high-volatile coals the proportion of the total product made by them was small and was usually used locally. The greater part of the coke made, and the coal gas produced, came from the Pittsburgh seam of western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia-which was then regarded as the standard coking and gas coal of the coun, try, and the best coal available anywhere for these purposes. With the advent of the by-product oven and the building of coke plants at the furnaces, the restriction of the use of one grade of coal for making coke was removed and the use of mixtures of low-volatile and high-volatile coals began. The change in the locations of the coke plants removed the necessity of using Connellsville coal and also made sources of gas available to the public utilities other than of their own manufacture. Most of the first oven plants were built at points distant from the Connellsville region and this afforded an opportunity for the use of coals from the southern Appalachian fields, which were at approximately equal distances from the ovens. Since that time development has been made on a number of seams of coal of great purity in southern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky, which have been largely used for cokemaking, gas and other metallurgical purposes where low amounts of ash, sulfur and phosphorus are determining factors. These coals are much lower in the objectionable elements than the best of the coal from the Pittsburgh seam, or than any northern coal, and in by-product ovens produce coke that is not excelled for any purpose by any coal mined in this country, and is equaled very seldom. Coal from several of these seams is shipped in great quantities without beneficiation and is lower in ash and sulfur than the best washed product from any seam mined in the north.

Jan 1, 1932

By Hsun Hu, R. S. Cline

The effect of rate of deformation on texture formatiotz has been studied with cube-oriented single crystals of 3 pct Si-Fe, compressed 80 pct at two widely different rates. Compression at a low rate (crosshead speed, 0.1 ipm) produces large orienta-tional changes and coarse deformation bands, whereas little change in orientation is observed, particularly at the surface of the crystal, when compressed at a high rate (impact velocity, -500 ips). Thin plates of mechanical twins are produced at the high rate, but their contribution to the deformation texture is practically negligible. The crystal deformed at a high rate has a lower hardness and a more uniform dislocation structure and is morc resistant to recrystallization. There is also a dilference in the recrystallization texture between the slowly and rapidly compressed crystals. These results indicate that plastic flow is less "turbulent" at high strain rates than at low strain ratcs. THE behavior of metals under high-speed deformation has been the subject of wide study in the past decade. Most of these works were concerned with mechanical properties during testing at high rates of loading, the resulting structures, and the theoretical aspects of the observed phenomena. The present status of knowledge and research activities in this field has been documented in recent publications.17' There is, however, very little information available in the literature concerning the effect of high-speed deformation on the texture formation in metals. The possibility of an effect of rate of deformation on texture is suggested by the microstructural differences observed between normally and very rapidly deformed samples. Aside from the strong tendency for twinning (and phase transformation in certain metals) in high-speed deformation, the slip-line patterns and the dislocation configurations show marked differences as a result of large differences in the strain rates. For instance, in mild steel in static and dynamic compression, Campbell and co-worker3,4 observed that coarse slip occurred on several systems in specimens deformed at normal strain rates, whereas specimens deformed rapidly showed only fine slip on fewer systems, the slip-line pattern being very similar to that in specimens deformed at low temperatures and at normal strain rates. The absence of multiple slip was also noticed by Dieter5 in shock-loaded nickel. The dislocation configuration in an iron shock loaded at 70 kbar pressure was shown by Leslie et al.6 to be similar to that produced by light rolling at low temperature—the dislocation lines were mostly straight and uniformly distributed. These observations suggest that the mode of deformation at high strain rates is notably different from that at low strain rates. Consequently, the nature and the extent of lattice reori-entation during deformation should also be different. This investigation was undertaken to test this idea. MATERIAL AND METHOD The remaining part of a single-crystal ingot of a 3 pct Si-Fe alloy,* prepared for an earlier investi- gation,1 was used in the present studies. Specimens 9/16 in. square and 0.365 in. thick were cut from this ingot with (001) planes parallel to the square surfaces, and the [loo] and 1010] directions parallel to the edges of the specimen, within ±1 deg. These machined crystals were etched to remove distorted metal, and annealed at 1300°C for 24 hr in a purified helium atmosphere. The annealed crystals had a hardness of 161 Dph. The crystal orientation was rechecked with X-ray back-reflection techniques. In high-strain rate experiments the crystal was compressed in a Dynapak machine to approximately 80 pct reduction in thickness (from 0.360 to 0.070 in. with an impact velocity of -500 ips). Thus, the duration of loading was approximately 6x 10-4 sec, and the average strain rate was about 103 sec-1. As a result of this rapid, severe deformation, the specimen became a roughly circular thin disc. The original shape of the crystal, however, could still be recognized by a diffusely outlined square area in the center of the disc. For compression at a low speed, the crystal was deformed in a universal testing machine at a rate of crosshead movement of 0.1 ipm. Compared with

Jan 1, 1965

By J. W. Snavely

WITH all the advantages of handling bulk materials by means of belt conveyor also go some problems, one of the most persistent being that of cleaning. When sticky materials are being carried; the build-up of material on the return idler rolls results in difficulty of belt training. Much attention has been given to the problem of cleaning conveyor belts, and a great variety of cleaning devices have been developed. Even the best involve troublesome maintenance, and none can completely remove the fine particles imbedded in the belt cover, which cause rapid wear of the return idler rolls, and at the same time, of the belt cover as well. One of the major rubber companies has been promoting a two-way belt system, in which the conveyor belt is given two successive 90" twists at each end to enable it to carry material in both directions simultaneously. For many years the flat belt transmission industry has installed quarter-turn and half-turn twists in countless numbers of instances. While quarter-turn and half-turn twists in transmission belts is a familiar application, the 180" twist apparently has never been previously attempted with a conveyor belt. About a year ago, two officials of the National Iron Co. of Duluth, Lester and Lewis Erickson, proposed twisting the return run of a conveyor belt on an installation that they were designing for one of the major iron ore producers. Since then the soundness of the idea has been demonstrated, both in theory and by practical test, with the result that the installation of two conveyor belts involving the twisting of the return run is now under way. These two installations are designed to have the return run of the conveyor belt twisted 180" as it leaves the snub pulley at the head drive. The clean underside of the belt is thus placed against the idlers on the return run as well as on the carrying run. Just before it enters the tail pulley, the belt will be twisted an additional 180°, restoring it to its normal position. Because this twisting of the return run of a conveyor belt is a radical departure from accepted practice, an elaborate and extensive test was conducted early in 1950 to demonstrate that this twisting of the return run could be done successfully, also to establish application data for accomplishing this twisting, and to determine if any special equipment would be required. In studying this concept of twisting the return run of a conveyor belt, a number of problems need to be solved, primarily the ones brought about by deliberately introducing an unequal distribution of stress across the conveyor belt and controlling that maldistribution of stress, while confining it to the return run portion. The tension conditions existing in the return run of a conveyor belt are clear to all designers. First, the return run carries the initial or slack side tension of the conveyor belt, the tension that must be supplied to the return run to provide proper frictional contact between the belt and the driving pulley so that the necessary power can be transmitted from the driving pulley to the belt without slippage. This slack side tension is supplied to the belt by means of takeups, either of the gravity type, which can be vertical or horizontal, or by means of the screw type. With inclined or declined belt conveyors the slope tension also must be considered, which is the tension imposed by the weight of the belt hanging from the top pulley. This slope tension frequently can furnish part or even all of the initial tension required. The maximum value of the slope tension will be at the top pulley, and it decreases in direct proportion to the length. In addition to the foregoing, it frequently is desirable to impose arbitrarily additional slack side tension to provide sufficient tension at the loading point at the tail, so that the belt will adequately support its load between the carrying idlers. Design Conditions for Twisting A number of design conditions exist, which must be satisfied successfully to accomplish the twisting of the return run without exceeding normal working limits in any portion of the conveyor belt. It is obvious that the belt edge, in its relation to the center of the belt, must stretch in making a twist, because as the twist is accomplished, the belt edge travels through a longer path than does the center of the belt. It is further obvious that if the edge of the belt is stretched, a redistribution of stress in the belt is required to allow this edge stretching. Moreover, this stress will be unequal across the width of the belt, having a maximum value at the edges, with a minimum value at the- center of the belt. With correct initial tension in the return run of a conveyor belt, the existing slack side tension will be unequally distributed when a twist is introduced. A condition then exists in which the edge stresses,

Jan 1, 1952

By S. Acar, P. Somasundaran

The results obtained for the selective flocculation of natural ores do not usually agree with the corresponding properties of the constituent minerals when present alone. This is mainly due to the presence of dissolved mineral species which can interact in many ways with other components in the system and alter their behavior. In this paper, the effect of dissolved species on the flocculation and electrokinetic properties of sulfide minerals is discussed. Dissolved iron, copper, and nickel (Fe, Cu, and Ni) species are found to affect the properties of natural chalcopyrite and pentlandite in certain pH range. These effects are interpreted in terms of species adsorption leading to activation or depression of reagents, surface precipitation, and complexation of species

Jan 1, 1986

By George J. Young

(Cleveland Meeting, October, 1912.) I. GENERAL. THE recurrence of mine-fires in Nevada during the past decade is not only a matter of interest, but also one of considerable concern to engineers and mine-managers. The more important fires may he enumerated as follows: Forman Shaft fire., Gold Hill, April 21, 1903 ; shaft-house, machinery, and shaft, destroyed; loss estimated at $50,000.; Cause Unknown. Union Shaft fire, Virginia City, July 14, 1904; shaft-house, machinery, and shaft in part destroyed; loss estimated it $100,000; cause of fire stated as the careless throwing of a match in the rope-house. Sutro Tunnel fire, Virginia City, Jan. 27, 1909 ; 700 ft. of tunnel-timbering destroyed, and direct damage of $10,000; cause ' probably electric wires." Belcher Shaft fire, Gold Hill, Aug. 9, 1910; shaft-house destroyed, machinery ruined, and upper part of shaft damaged; damage, $25,000; no cause given. Belmont Mine fire, Tonopah, Feb. 23, 1911; fire started in winze ; 17 men killed. Giroux Mine fire, Kimberly, Aug. 23, 1911 ; fire originated iii shaft-station from unknown cause; 7 men killed, and $34,¬521 damage caused. (NOTE 1.-On June 11, 1912, some time after the present paper was written, a fire broke out in the pump-room on the 2475 station of the Ward shaft, Virginia City. This fire was caused by the short-circuiting and exploding of the starting-switch on No. 5 pump. The oil in the switch was scattered about and set fire to the timbers and laming of the pump-room. The pump-roan in charge notified the surface, and the * Professor of Mining and Metallurgy, Mackay School of Mines.

Oct 1, 1912

By P. G. Shewmon, H. E. Collins

A study has been made to determine the sites at which sulfur adsorption occurs on copper surfaces. measurements were made of the relative torques, Ys, at the intersection of twin boundaries with surfaces near the three low-index orientations, i.e., (100), @lo), and 011), over a range of H2S/H2 ratios. HZS concerztvations j'ro~n 3 to 1500pp)n between 830" and 1050°C were used. It is concluded that sulfur adsorption occurved preferentially though not exclusively at edge sites near the (100) and (110) surfaces in the HzS range — 700 Ppm giving rise to negative torques near these orientations. Beyond this HzS range, adsorption occurred at all sites. Near the (111) surface, 7/y little with HzS concentration up to approxiwzately 75pptn. Above this range, the results indicate adsorption is occurring OH both terrace and edge sites. SCIENTIFIC interest in surfaces and their interactions with a gaseous environment dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. The scientific luminaries of that period—Faraday, Maxwell, Rayleigh, Dewar, and Gibbs—were already concerned about such processes. However, it has only been within the past several decades that adsorption on metal surfaces has been actively studied. This increased interest in adsorption has been brought about by the advent of new and improved experimental techniques and apparatus, e.g., ultrahigh vacuum, and field-emission and ion microscopes. However, most of the work done using these techniques has been carried out at low temperatures. When adsorption studies have been made at either low or high temperatures, they usually gave no indication of the particular surface orientations or type of sites on which adsorption was occurring. In the last few years, there have been a series of studies in which the surface tension, y,, and/or its derivative with respect to orientation, 7, have been studied as a function of orientation and atmosphere.'-7 Nearly all of the work on the relative torque,* ~/y, silver annealed in hydrogen and air.6 Recently Winterbottom and Gjostein" have used a modified and more accurate Mykurian method to determine the y plot of gold in hydrogen The only work in which T/~, has been measured over a range of chemical potentials for a given solute, p2, is that of Robertson and shewmon7 on the Cu-0 system. They measured T/Y, vs Po, (10"" to 10- l3 atm) at 1000°C in various mixtures of Hz0 and HZ. From this work they estimated the value of p2 at which one half of the surface sites are occupied with oxygen, pg, as being in the range 10- l6 to 10- l5 atm of oxygen. They also found that increasing Pa increased the magnitude of ~/y, near the (111) and (100) orientations. This indicates that oxygen is not adsorbed preferentially at step edges, but uniformly over all surface sites. In addition, they did one experiment on sulfur adsorption on copper surfaces, which indicated that sulfur adsorption decreases ~/y, near the (100) orientation, while not affecting ~/y, near the (111). This could be interpreted as indicating that sulfur adsorbs preferentially at step edges near the (100). In this paper the primary objective of the work has been to carry out a study of sulfur adsorption on copper surfaces over a range of temperatures and p,. In conjunction with this work, thermal grooving at grain boundaries has been examined as a method of determining the effect of sulfur adsorption on y,. METHODS Ideally, one would like to have information on the quantity of solute adsorbed on a surface and the types of sites at which it is absorbed as a function of p2. The total quantity adsorbed or the surface excess is given by the thermodynamic equation Thus data on the variation of y, with pz indicates the value of p2 at which adsorption becomes appreciable and the quantity adsorbed. The type of adsorption site is more difficult to deduce but information on this can be obtained from the variation of rz with 8, the angular deviation of the surface orientation. This is obtained from the thermodynamic equationlg Data on t and ys as functions of p2 have been obtained by the following methods. 1) Twin Boundary Grooving—By determining the effect of adsorption on the torque, 7, where T is the variation of surface energy, y,, with orientation, it is possible to obtain some indication as to the preferred sites of adsorption. Experimentally, the torque value measured is the relative torque, 7/ys The twin boundary grooving technique suggested by Mykura'' was used in this study to determine near the three low-index orientations— (loo), (110), and (111). Mykura's equation relates 7 /yS to measurements of the di-

Jan 1, 1967

By L. A. Walker

DURING the past twelve years the underground shaft of the United States mine at Bingham has been sunk an additional 2000 ft. with stations and pockets cut every 200 ft. without interrupting the mining of 600 tons of ore per day and the advancing of 1500 ft. of development per month. Following is a brief description of the way the joint work is conducted. The vertical underground shaft is a three-compartment shaft with outside dimensions of 6 ft. 4 in. by 15 ft. 6 in., and inside dimensions for each compartment of 4 ft. 2 in. by 4 ft. 8 in. The manway compartment of the main shaft is used as the hoisting compartment in sinking operations; it is partially lined with 2 by 12-in, lagging and a bucket is used without guides or crosshead. Preparatory work includes the placing of a bulkhead in the manway compartment, 60 ft. above the lowest station or level, the installation of a hoist, a head sheave, a fleet sheave, a-signal system, air and water lines, and a trap door for handling waste.

Jan 1, 1937

B. F. TILLSON,* Franklin Furnace, N. J.-I would like to ask Major Yerkes if he will not give us more examples of the tests than are contained in the printed pamphlet. It would be of great interest to study them more carefully. ROBERT M. YERKES, Washington, D. C.-The reason for not reproducing the methods in any public print is that it lessens their value and necessitates the preparation of new test materials. BRADLEY STOUGHTON, New York, N. Y.-I hope that this matter will be of so much interest to the members of the Institute that the Directors will decide to appoint a committee which can bring further results of this practice before us. I understand that Columbia University, at least in some departments, has already adopted the B and A tests and is using them. I understand that some industries have considered seriously the question of grading their employees in accordance with

Jan 4, 1919

Jan 1, 1935

By Paul M. Tyler

HISTORICAL concepts of the economics of the glass-sand industry are changing rapidly. The greatly expanded demand for glass containers combined with higher freight rates on raw materials and manufactured products have induced a migration of glass factories toward densely populated centers and the creation of new standards of place value for sub- standard sand deposits. This migration has been facilitated by the construction of pipelines to bring cheaper natural gas and liquid fuel to large cities and may be further speeded by the adoption of modern mineral dressing methods to permit economical utilization of local raw materials. Our national resources of naturally high-grade 1 silica sand are abundant, but most of the best de- posits are situated so far from large centers of population that it now costs $3.00 to $5.00 a ton to carry the sand from the mine to the optimum site for a 1 factory making beverage bottles, scientific and electrical glassware, and miscellaneous blown and pressed ware for local markets. It follows that on the basis of freight savings alone it may be economical to use material from inferior deposits closer to the factory even though the f.o.b. cost of mining and treatment may be much high

Jan 1, 1950

By R. D. Reiswig, J. M. Dickinson

The 0s-Ir equilibrium diagram was determined. The diagram is of the simple peritectic type, with a peritectic temperature of about 2660°C. The solid miscibility gap is narrower than previously reported, the nearly vertical solvus lines occurring at about 42 and 63 wt pct 0s. Widmanstaetten figures resembling martensite in some of the two-phase alloys account for a previously suspected transformation. In view of the long history of use of such alloys, it is surprising that the 0s-Ir equilibrium diagram has not yet been completely determined. The boundaries of the miscibility gap in this system have been estimated to be between 24 and 39 wt pct 0s and 79 and 100 wt pct OS. It has been predicted3 that alloys of ruthenium, osmium, and rhenium with the fcc platinum metals should solidify peritectically in their two-phase regions. The metallographic examination of natural osmiridium alloys has been said4 to indicate, by the presence of a martensitic structure, the existence of a transformation or a phase separation. On the basis of superconducting transition temperature measurements, a 70 at. pct 0s alloy was found5 to be two-phase prior to annealing. EXPERIMENTAL The elemental components used in this work were obtained from several suppliers as sponge. The purities, stated by each supplier to be in excess of 99.8 pct, were confirmed in each case by a semiquantitative spectrographic analysis. The pure components were premelted in an inert-gas tungsten arc furnace with the evolution of some fume, crushed, and pickled for use as alloy melting stock. Upon arc melting to the final compositions, no fume evolution was observed. Because weight losses of the order of 15 mg or less were observed in preparing alloy buttons weighing 15 g, "synthetic analyses" were used in determining the compositions of the alloys. Alloys used in this investigation contained 15, 20, 33, 40, 42, 43, 45, 50, 55, 60, 63, 64, 66, 70, 79, and 80 wt pct 0s. Heat treatments of the alloy buttons and pieces thereof were performed in a previously described6 tungsten tube furnace under pressures of 105 torr or less. It was found that homogenization treatments on the specimens were essential to remove the severe coring which was present, a 3-hr treatment above 2300°C removing all the metallographi-cally visible evidence of coring. Following the various heat treatments, the specimens were "vacuum-quenched" by melting a tungsten fuse wire and allowing them to drop onto a water-cooled copper plate. In a few instances, specimens were quenched into molten tin for comparison, but no difference was apparent. Vacuum-quenched specimens cooled from 2400°C to below a red heat in less than 60 sec. Typical equilibration times varied from 3 hr above 2300°C to 88 hr near 1100°C. The utilization of successively longer equilibration times and the approach to equilibrium from both directions indicated that the times used were sufficient to give a close approach to true equilibrium. Heat-treatment temperatures were measured with a calibrated Leeds and Northrup optical pyrometer through a 0.120-in. lateral sight hole in the tungsten heater tube. It was known that the assumption of black-body conditions inside the 1-in.-diam by 10-in.-long tube was unwarranted. The empirical results of work with thermocouples and melting

Jan 1, 1964

W. L. SaundeRs, New York City (communication to the Secretary*):—Notwithstanding the sweeping statements made by Mr. Clarke in this paper, the friends of compressed air are not dismayed. There is no war between electricity and compressed air. Each one has its field of usefulness, and in that field each is supreme. In spite of commercial interests, in spite of prejudices and the enthusiasm of the inventor, the thing that is best will survive and flourish. At least ten years ago, our engineering papers contained large advertisements and pages of reading-matter about the application of electricity to mines, recording the introduction of numerous rock-drilling plants, and claiming that the problem had been solved, greatly to the advantage of the miner and with promise of large profits to the manufacturers of electrical apparatus. Edison and Thomson labored to apply electricity to mines, and each believed that the probabilities of success were great. This was the period of the solelloid rock-drill, which mas admirably suited, theoretically, to the percussive principle and in the development of which hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent without satisfactory result. I have searched in vain for a standard mining equipment where electric rock-drills are in constant, commercial operation. During a recent trip made from New York to California, I visited most of the important mines of the West and failed to discover a single electric equipment, so far as this class of mining-work is concerned. If any one will inform me where there exists today an electric-drilling equipment in constant service in mines in the United States, I shall be glad to receive the information. Mr. Clarke has been for some years an active and intelligent writer on the subject of electricity for mining. Whenever his

Jan 1, 1904

By J. B. Fisken

(Butte Meeting, August, 1913.) BEFORE touching upon the immediate subject of this paper a few facts of a historical nature as to the general application of electricity to mining might be of interest. As to what was actually the first application of electricity to mining, opinions will no doubt always differ. My experience does not go back far enough, nor are the records to which I have had access of any value as covering this point. Sydney F. Walker, a man whose pioneer experience in the application of electricity to mining purposes dates back as far as 1876, ,gave an interesting resume of the subject in an address before the South Wales branch of the Association of Mining Electrical Engineers at its 1.913 session, and, unless his statements are shown to be wrong, they should be accepted as facts. According to Mr. Walker, the ignition of charges of blasting powder was the first operation in mining to be accomplished with the aid of electricity. Very frequently this energy was furnished by a static machine and occasionally by a magneto generator. Later, this was followed by the application of electricity to bell signals, and we are told that this application was looked upon skeptically and regarded as an expensive experiment by the mining managers of those early days. At the Paris Exposition of 1878, there was exhibited an electric lamp, which suggested future possibilities to the mining engineers of those days. The first successful application of electric lighting to underground excavations that I have been able to find any record of is that of M. Blavier. In the year 1879' he installed two Serrin lamps and successfully illuminated one of the large underground chambers in the Angers slate quarries. Another early application of electricity to the lighting of mines is that in the large chambers in the salt mines of Maros-Ujvár, in Hungary; these have been regularly and successfully lighted elec-

Jan 6, 1913

L. C. UREn,* BerkelEy, Cal. (written discussion).—I heartily concur with Rlr. .Fobs concerning the need for advanced courses on various phases of Petroleum Engineering. I think that his criticism is probably true of most of the engineering schools that are specializing at all in Petroleum Engineering, that is, that most of their so-called graduate courses are not of graduate caliber but are merely more specialized aspects of undergraduate subjects. It would undoubtedly be to the advantage of the petroleum profession if more advanced work could be offered in a few of the leading engineering institutions so that there would be something substantial to offer graduate students wishing to return after a period of undergraduate work, for additional training. There is no doubt but that a better trained engineer, more useful to the oil industry, could be secured from schools offering such advanced training. The problem of adpting our instruction to fit the needs of engineers trained along other lines who wish, after completion of their undergraduate work, to enter thc petroleum engineering field, is a more difficult one. It has been my experience that such men are usually sadly deficient along certain lines and that they are really not prepared for the more advanced work in Petroleum Production Engineering until they have gone back over the work which they have missed in their undergraduate training. I note that Mr. Fohs suggests that other eastern and western colleges not now stressing Petrolelim Engineering, should be encouraged to take up advanced work of this character. With this, however, I cannot agree unless the institutions arc also prepared to offer a full sequence of undergraduate work on which the more advanced courses may be superimposed. Whether or not there is a need for additional engi-ncering colleges entering the petroleum engineering field is an open qucstion. I believe that we arc turning out enough petroleum engineers at the present time and that none of the six institutions now specializing in this field arc overcrowded. Morc-ovcr, they are fairly well distributed over the country, though there may be room for an additional school in the field in the eastcrn section of the United States. F. W. Padgett, Norman, Okla. (written tliscussion).—Assuming that the stnclcnt has the proper fundamentals, that is, general science and a knowledge of the technology of the industry, then the problem is: What courses should be offered from the graduate standpoint? (a) Course Work.—His knowledge of the technology of the industry can be extended advantagcously by means of one and two-hour courses, which consist in a more detailed survey of the various branches of the industry. (b) Lilerdure.—This work may, or may not, be connected directly with his research problem. The student should become familiar with methods of locating articles in the 1iterature; should also become familiar with all the important original

Jan 1, 1928

By George W. Riter

Discussion of the paper of H. 0. Hofman and C. R. Hayward, presented at the New Haven Meeting, February, 1909, and printed in Bulletin No. 30, June, 1909, pp. 513 to 529. GEORGE W. RITER, Salt Lake City, Utah (communication to the Secretary*).-In their paper, Messrs. Hofman and Hayward deal with a branch of silver metallurgy that is on very uncertain ground, both as a commercial process and as a metallurgical science; moreover, its field is limited to few localities and to peculiar conditions. The literature on the subject is incomplete and full of conflicts. The paper under discussion clears u p no disputed points; on the contrary, because of hasty generalization, its tendency is towards further confusion. In Table I., the authors assume that each test-lot of 1,800 g. of ore contained exactly 5.499 g. of silver, that any variation in the quantity of silver recovered, however slight, should be ascribed to variation in the time of grinding. It is barely possible that the ore was mixed so uniformly as to justify this assumption; but those of us who know how difficult it is to get uniform samples of any ore in which silver mineral is present in rich particles will have a doubt on this point. The unlikelihood of getting absolutely uniform test-lots of ore also reflects on the data in Table II., on the effect of varying the amount of salt in a pan-charge. The authors say " The salt series was the last one that was investigated." This again raises a question as to whether the ore was split into test-lots at the time of sampling, or whether it was kept in bulk in such a way as to permit mechanical concentration of values before the end of the experiments. The conclusion following Table II.: " There is no reason, therefore, for going beyond six per cent. of salt," is hardly to the point. If we assume that salt is of benefit only when in solution, it follows that the relation between the quantity of salt

Mar 1, 1910

By Wilhelm Borchers

In all special branches of the chemical and metallurgical industries, in which large electric furnaces became necessary for carrying out new processes or for the improvement of old ones, the development of the electric furnaces took place on much the same lines. The endeavors to make a success of a new idea brought forth many ingenious designs, which, however, almost without exception, furnished the proof that the safest and shortest way to practical success is the utmost simplicity of construction of the necessary apparatus. Our knowledge of the qualities of materials for building electric furnaces and of the constituents of the furnace-charges, especially their electric conductivity and their chemical affinity towards one another at high temperatures, is still far from being complete, and from this fact we must conclude that the smaller the number of elements in the construction of a furnace, the fewer the number of unreliable factors both in the construction and in the operation of the electric furnace. This conclusion deserves special attention when an electric furnace for making steel has to be chosen from the constantly-growing number of inventions, inasmuch as the chief constituent of steel, the element iron, is a substance which in its liquid phase has so great an affinity for those elemen'ts which are to be removed from the charge, that it is very difficult to comply with the following conditions: 1, to heat the refining-slag to the highest point of its chemical activity ; 2, to prevent the iron from entering the slag, or, where this cannot be done, to make it enter so that it finally appears in the end-product

Jan 1, 1911

By L. J. Howell, R. C. Sommer, H. H. Kellogg

WORK described herein was undertaken with the aim of determining some of the physical-chemical properties of electrolytes suitable for the electrodeposition of pure zirconium metal. In this paper the phase diagram, vapor pressure, and activities in the melt are considered. In a companion paper,' the electrolytic conductivity of some of these melts is reported. The melts studied were mixtures of NaCl and/or KC1 with ZrC1,. Chloride melts were chosen for study because 1) if the electrolyte is to be useful for industrial electrodeposition of zirconium, the chlorides will be preferred to the relatively costly bromides and iodides; 2) fluoride melts were being studied in another laboratory (Horizons Inc., Cleveland); and 3) melts containing oxygen, in any form, are unsuitable for preparation of pure zirconium, because of the great affinity of this metal for oxygen. Unlike electrodeposition from aqueous solution, the fundamental behavior of fused-salt electrolysis is poorly understood. In most cases, such basic electrochemical information as the phase diagram of the melt system, activities in the melt, conductivity, the nature of the current-carrying ions, the equilibrium electrode potentials, and the overvoltage behavior of the electrodes is unknown to the researcher who would develop a new electrodeposition process employing a fused salt. This research project was designed to supply information about some of these basic physical-chemical properties so that an intelligent choice of electrolyte for electrodeposition studies could be made. Experimental The experimental difficulties-encountered in this work result from the properties of zirconium metal and ZrC1,. ZrC1, is a solid which sublimes at 334°C. It is rapidly hydrolyzed by moist air to HC1, ZrOCl,, and ZrO,. Unusual precautions were exercised in this work to prevent hydrolysis of ZrC1, and rigidly to exclude oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon from the melts under study. These elements are known to react with and contaminate zirconium metal. All melts were studied in vacuum systems, i.e., in the presence of ZrC1, vapor only. Transfer of ZrC1, to or from the melts was accomplished entirely by vacuum sublimation. In this way, neither the melts nor the ingredients thereof were permitted to

Jan 1, 1958

By A. Tanaka, K. G. Carroll

The existence of local room-temperature plastic flow in germanium, which has been a subject of controversy for nearly two decades, has recently received renewed attention, albeit no more agreement than hitherto. Phenomenologically one major facet of the problem has been reduced to the question whether or not indentation can be effected in germanium without the introduction of cracks. That plastic flow can be induced at room temperature by fracture appears to have been rather convincingly demonstrated recently by Suzuki and Kamada and by Noble and Henisch.1 The literature contains both direct and incidental references to Vickers and Knoop indentations showing no cracks, within resolution of optical microscopy. Recently, however, following a controversy on the subject,2,3 johnson4 made a study of indentations produced by spherical indenters and concluded that these are accompanied by cracking. This study in-

Jan 1, 1969