424 



METALS. 



is accompanied invariably by a roar similar to tliat 

 which is heard in a small Bessemer converter. 



The conversion seldom takes more than from two 

 and a half minutes to five minutes, but occasionally, 

 when the molten metal is not at a high temperature, 

 and cannot at once pass through the perforated plate, 

 it lasts eight or ten minutes. 



Krupp's Bessemer Rails. The manufacture 

 of Bessemer steel rails is now very extensively 

 conducted in the great works of Herr Krupp, 

 at Essen. 



The Engineer says: There are four con- 

 verters used only for rail-making. The steel 

 ingots obtained are cylindrical, 1 foot 6 inches 

 diameter, and 5 feet high. These ingots are 

 hammered under a steam-hammer of 8 tons, 

 and reduced to an octagonal section 12 inches 

 wide. They are then rolled through a rolling- 

 inill worked hy a 100-horse-power horizontal 

 and direct-acting engine. This engine, which 

 is not condensing, runs 'at 50 revolutions per 

 minute, and has a fly-wheel 46 feet diameter, 

 weighing 60 tons. The ingot is thus converted 

 into a rectangular bar 5 inches thick and Cl- 

 inches wide; this bar is divided into six or 

 eight pieces, under a steam-hammer of 4 tons. 

 Each of these pieces is used for making rails ; 

 they are rolled through a steam rolling-mill 

 worked by a 500-horse-power steam-engine to 

 the speed of 60 revolutions per minute. This 

 system of manufacture enables us to get rid of 

 the globules which have been ere now the most 

 grievous defect of the steel rails, and which are 

 more easily expelled from a large ingot than a 

 small one. 



Tungsten Bessemer Steel. The idea of alloy- 

 ing steel with tungsten is not a new one. Mr. 

 Mushet proposed it many years ago. At a 

 later date M. Leguen, of France, made experi- 

 ments with the alloy, employing iron converted 

 into steel by the Bessemer process. With a 

 common gray pig, which he used then, he 

 produced an alloy of very good quality. Re- 

 cently he has continued his experiments, now 

 employing a good white cast iron, and pro- 

 ducing an excellent steel. A portion of the 

 iron is first alloyed with one-tenth of wolfram in 

 a cupola furnace, and is added to the rest in 

 the converter. The conversion is carried 

 further than usual, so that the carbon is re- 

 duced to one-half the ordinary proportion. 

 The steel made by this process is soft, but very 

 tough, and tempers remarkably well. Mr. 

 Leguen mentions that it will be found extreme- 

 ly useful for machines, some parts of which 

 require to be tempered, while others are kept 

 soft. The amount of tungsten used to make 

 the alloy is only 0.55 per cent., so that the 

 additional cost of the steel cannot be very 

 high. Eails have been made from this kind 

 of steel the alloy containing .558 per cent, of 

 tungsten. M. Leguen says of this part of his 

 experiments : 



" The rolling of the tungsten-steel ingots 

 did not exhibit any peculiar feature. They 

 were rolled into rails for the French Eastern 

 Railroad. The rails, when finished, were laid 



into the track of the Strasbourg depot in Paris. 

 They were also tested by a breaking strain 

 and by concussion, as well as by forging and 

 hardening. The engineer who was intrusted 

 with this testing reported to me on the result 

 as follows : 



" ' The tungsten-steel rails tested at the depot 

 of the Eastern Railroad were highly flexible 

 and tough. The steel worked perfectly well 

 in being hammered and jumped. In turning 

 it off, chips of remarkable strength were ob- 

 tained. To investigate into its capacity of 

 hardening, several bars, 25 millim. square, 

 were forged and hardened at a cherry-red 

 heat. The grain in the fracture of the metal 

 was, before this operation, large, white, bright, 

 and somewhat hookey ; after being hardened, 

 it was very fine, gray, and showed a peculiar 

 lustre, like velvet. Any steel made at Terre- 

 noire by the ordinary method, and hardening 

 so well, would be too brittle to be used for 

 rails. But the tungsten Bessemer steel com- 

 bines the highest degree of toughness with an 

 eminent capacity for hardening.' " 



Durability of Steel Eails. Van NostrancPs 

 Magazine alludes to the fact that, out of the 

 11,000 tons of steel rails in use on the Hudson 

 River Railroad, some of which had been down 

 over three years, only eleven had broken, up 

 to January 1, 1869. On the Erie Railroad 

 only ten steel rails had broken, up to the same 

 date, out of the 8,000 tons in use. Some thou- 

 sands of tons of these rails were made at Troy, 

 NV Y. ; the rest are of English manufacture. 

 Other railroad companies using steel rails bear 

 witness to their great superiority in all re- 

 spects over the old iron ones. 



Tests of Steel and Iron Car-wheels. The 

 American Railway Times publishes the fol- 

 lowing minutes of some tests made upon steel 

 and iron car- wheels at the shops of the Penn- 

 sylvania Railway at Altoona, in June. A steel 

 wheel made on Tarr's patent, at the " Black 

 Diamond Steel Works," Pittsburg, was first 

 tried. The test was that of the drop, weigh- 

 ing 1,200 Ibs., falling upon the wheel, on bear- 

 ings two feet apart, the blow on the hub : 



1st blow, 9 feet fall, no apparent injury. 



2d 



3d 



4th 



5th 



6th 



7th 



8th 



11 



16 



20 

 28 

 28 



28 



cracked at hub. 



drove hub through the plate of 

 the wheel, leaving the whole tread and guard 

 around the circumference of the wheel perfectly 

 Bound. The steel wheel weighed 444 Ibs. 



At the same time and place the follow- 

 ing tests of the best iron wheels in use were 

 made: 



Eamapo, 1st blow, 10 feet, broke in many pieces. 

 Lobdell, 1st 

 2d 



German, 1st 



Whitney, 1st 



2d 



Whitney, 1st 



