Industrial Research 



159 



tecnth century, but this probably had as iTiiportant 

 ramifications in industry generally as any tliat ferrous 

 metallurgy has known. This was the discovery by 

 Taylor and Wliite, in 1894 to 1898, of high-speed steel 

 and of the heat treatment necessary to give the steel 

 its unique property of red hardness, i. e., the abihty 

 to keep its cutting edge when operating at such high 

 speeds that the tool gets red hot. The steel itself was 

 an outgrowth of the original Mushet air-hardening 

 process, but the heat treatment was unique. High- 

 speed steel completely revolutionized the machine-tool 

 industry and made tungsten, its principal alloying 

 element, a strategic material of first inqjortance. 



Little research on metallurgical fundamentals waa 

 carried out in the United States before 1900. Albert 

 Sauveur was the first in this country to study the 

 structui'e of steel with the microscope (1891-93), and 

 Henry Marion Howe, at Columbia University, won 

 world-wide fame as an investigator of the constitution 

 of iron-carbon and other alloys. Howe's book on 

 metallurgy, published in 1890, was for many years a 

 classic in this field. 



Contributions of Other Countries 

 in the Nineteenth Century 



As pioneers in metallm-gical research both Germany 

 and France rank as high as the United States. In 

 one sense they rank higher, as Germany was producing 

 only 10 to 17 million tons of steel and pig iron, and 

 France oidy 5 to 7 million tons, as compared with an 

 annual total of 18 to 25 million tons for the United 

 States. 



Research in France during the last half of the nine- 

 teenth centmy resulted in a number of important 

 developments in processes. French engineers dis- 

 covered how to coke bitimainous coal in closed retorts, 

 so that the valuable byproducts could be recovered, 

 and perfected the electric arc furnace as a means of 

 melting steel and nonferrous alloys. They were also 

 the first to build armored naval vessels and to use 

 steel in building construction. As the result of re- 

 search on materials, French scientists were the first to 

 produce ferromanganese on a commercial scale and 

 were primarily responsible for the discovery of iron- 

 nickel alloys having unique expansion, magnetic, and 

 electric characteristics, which have been an important 

 factor in the development of an efficient communications 

 system. In research in fundamentals, the French 

 rank next to the British. Osmond discovered the 

 allotropy of iron, and Le Chatelier perfected the pyrom- 

 eter and the metallurgical microscope; these were of 

 prime importance in the development of a science of 

 physical metallurgJ^ 



Of the 24 important contributions made by Germans 

 to the improvement of processes and products, and to 



furthering metjillurgical knowledge, the following arc 

 outstanding: The univ^ersal mill, the hydraulic forging 

 press, producing cement from slag, and acetylene which 

 is now used widely in welding. Martens and Wedding 

 made important contributions to physical metallui'gy. 

 Equally outstanding is the work of Woliler who, be- 

 tween 1850 and 1870, investigated the failure of metals 

 under repeated stress and established the existence of 

 fatigue phenomena. 



Of the countries not mentioned only Sweden was an 

 early contributor of anything of inq)ortance to the 

 development of the iron and steel industry. The work 

 of Eggertz on chemical analysis of iron and steel is 

 noteworthy, as is Brinell's development of a simple 

 test for determining hardness. 



World Research in the Iron and 

 Steel Industry, 1900 to 1930 



A comparison of research in ferrous metallurgy over 

 the first 3 decades of the twentieth centm-y for the four 

 prmcipal steel-making countries of the world is given 

 in table 2. The amount of research in any one coimtry 

 naturally varies with the size of the iron and steel 

 industiy; thus, more has been done, especially since 

 the First World War, in the United States than in 

 any other country. To consider only the vohmie of 

 actual research would, therefore, not give a true picture 

 of the research-mindedness of the industry or of the 

 country; hence recourse was had to calculation of a 

 research factor. This factor was obtained by dividing 

 the nimiber of reports which contributed to the advance 

 of the industry or to fundamental knowledge in ferrous 

 metallurgy, as published in the technical press, by the 

 total production of steel ingots plus pig iron, in millions 

 of metric tons.^ 



There are, of couree, several objections to a compari- 

 son of this sort. In the first place, the results of many 

 research projects, especially those which produce an 

 improvement of processes, are never published. In the 

 second place, it is practically impossible to separate 

 reports of metallurgical research done by the industry 

 itself from reports of research done by the universities 

 and Government laboratories. This is especially true 

 for Germany where the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fUr 

 Eiscnforschung and the Technische Ilochschule at 

 Aachen (among others) do a large amount of work, 

 especially of the more fundamental kind, for the steel 

 industry. In the third place — and this is the most 

 important variable — the accuracy of such a comparison 



2 Data on stci'I-ingot and pig-iron production are from The mineral industry. New 

 York, Scientific Publishing Co., 1893-1935; Minerals yearbook. Yearbook of the 

 Bureau of Mines, Washington, U. S. Government Printing OfBce; data on pub- 

 lished papers from bibliographies of Alloys of iron research. (Monograph series, 

 6,000 papers). New York. McOraw-Hill Book Co., 1932-1939; supplemented by a 

 review of the abstract section of the Journal of the Iron and Sled InstiliUe (British), 

 (1900-1930). 



