Industrial Research 



169 



significant increase — indeed in some cases with a 

 decrease — in cost. This has been especially evident 

 in the past decade and has affected all branches of the 

 industry. Pig iron is more uniform in composition and 

 quality than ever before; precision melting in the 

 basic open-hearth process, with instrument control, 

 with slags of carefully adjusted composition, and with 

 regulated deo.xidation to produce steels of specific 

 grain size, is now common. New methods for exact 

 control of the Bessemer process and for improved slag 

 practice are being used, and good quality free-machining 

 steel with 0.30 to 0.40 percent of sulfur is made 

 regularly. 



Improvmg the quality of steel without a significant 

 increase in cost to the consumer is an accomplishment 

 of considerable magnitude as the stricter metallurgical 

 control necessary raises the basic cost of the material. 

 According to White," unalloyed steel containing 0.25 

 percent of carbon, made without modern metallurgical 

 control and testing, cost $43.04 a ton in 1936. The 

 same steel made with complete metallurgical control 

 and testing, costs as much as $60.48 a ton, a possible 

 increase of $17.44, of which $3.23 represents the cost 

 of the metallurgical control and testing, and the 

 remainder, $14.21, represents the increased cost of the 

 various manufacturing operations owing to more rigid 

 quality requirements. 



The continuous rolling mill has been responsible for a 

 reduction in the price of 20-gage sheet steel for auto- 

 mobile fenders from 6 cents a pound in 1923 to 3K cents 

 in 1936; it has improved the quality with the result that 

 the deformation possible m drawing a fender crown 

 has increased from 2% inches in 1923 to 16 to 18 inches 

 in 1936. Today, only the nose of the fender is polished, 



"White, C. M. Technological advances in steel production. (Yearbook of the 

 American Iron and Steel Institute.) New York, American Iron and Steel Institute, 

 1937, pp. 105-28. 



and the paint consists of one coat of primer and one 

 coat of finish; in 1923, three polishing operations and 

 four priming and finishing coats were necessary.^* 



Research in corrosion and in protective coatings, and 

 the development of alloy steels, have more than doubled 

 the average life expectancy of all iron and steel m the 

 last 50 years. In 1890, the average life was 15 years, 

 in 1910 it was 22 years, and in 1935 it was 35. A 

 considerable part of this increase is due to higher and 

 more uniform quality, with fewer early failures. 



The development of low-alloy steels, which cost 

 between 3J^ and 5 cents a pound as compared with 2% 

 cents a pound for unalloyed structural material, has 

 had — and is now having — a great effect on the design 

 and construction of railway rolling stock. A hopper 

 car constructed of low-alloy steel weighs 30,000 pounds 

 and carries 139,000 pounds as compared with a weight 

 of 44,000 pounds and carrying capacity of 125,000 

 pounds for the conventional car. This is equivalent 

 to converting 7 tons of dead weight into revenue- 

 producing capacity. Savings accompanying the use of 

 higher temperatures and pressures in power generation 

 and in oil refining are even more spectacular and are 

 due almost solely to the development — much of it in 

 the United States — of alloy steels which resist de- 

 formation at high temperatures. 



These are only a few of the advances in the iron and 

 steel industry of the United States in the past 15 or 20 

 years which have resulted from research. The list 

 could be extended almost indefinitely; enough has been 

 said, however, to show that research in the iron and 

 steel industry — which has certainly only begun — has 

 had a strong stimulative effect on general industrial 

 progress in the United States. 



2' Steel makes possible new styling of 1937 mudcl automobiles. Sleet Facts, No. 16, 

 3 (December 1936); Quality of steels has increased more than price in recent years. 

 No. 24. 4, 5 (February 1938). 



