PROPERTIES AND USES OF NICKEL STEEL. 685 
SOME OF THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND 
USES OF NICKEL STEEL. 
By W. H. Warren, M. Inst. C.E., M. Am. Soc. C.E., 
Challis Professor of Engineering, University of Sydney. 
i History. 
THE first suggestion for the practical application of nickel 
as an alloy with iron is due to Farady. In 1820 and 1821 
he and Stodart made a considerable number of iron and 
steel alloy experiments, consisting of Swedish horseshoe-nail , 
iron melted with 1 per cent., 3 per cent., 5 per cent., 10 per 
cent., 20 per cent., and 50 per cent. nickel. The metals 
were found to combine well, the 3 per cent. alloy being 
specially malleable, and working satisfactorily under the 
hammer. Farady’s valuable experiments do not seem to 
have led to any commercial application in England, although 
they opened the way to what has since been accomplished in 
this direction. In 1885 nickel steel and nickel iron were 
manufactured at Mr. Marbeau’s works at Montalaire, 
France, under the supervision of Mr. Berthcault. Similar 
results were obtained at the Imphy Works in 1887. -In 
1889 Mr. James Riley published his valuable paper on 
“ Alloys of Iron and Nickel,” and in 1894 a length of shaft- 
ing of nickel steel was constructed for the American liner 
Paris. 
In June 1895 the Pennsylvania Steel Company made a 
heat of about four tons of open hearth nickel steel for the 
purpose of investigating its physical qualities when rolled 
into plates and bars. The results obtained in their experi- 
ments were lower than those from nickel steel produced in 
the ordinary way, in consequence of the small ingots obtained 
from the heat not allowing for a sufficient reduction in 
rolling. 
In 1896 an investigation was made on the properties of 
nickel and iron alloys by Prof. M. Rudeloff, Assistant Direc- 
tor of the Royal Prussian Testing Department, the alloys 
bemg melted in small quantities. The results are interest- 
ing as showing the influence of varying proportions of nickel 
on the physical properties of the Ae and are briefly 
summarized as follows :— 
Expansion by H eat.—The coefficient of expansion by heat 
was found to decrease with the increase in the percentage 
