Industrial Besearch 



303 



interest, including valuable pioneer work on fatigue of 

 metals, and has contributed to specific projects of the 

 A. S. T. M.-A. S. M. E. joint high-temperature com- 

 mittee, as well as to the alloys-of-iron research, which 

 latter is, however, not of an experimental nature. 

 Battelle Memorial Institute is an exception, since it 

 docs metallurgical research on its own funds and 

 publishes the results. State and other university 

 experiment stations do some valuable metallurgical 

 research at State expense. But in all these cases the 

 endowed or publicly supported institution selects the 

 topic for research. In the United States, when a 

 metallurgical firm or a group of firms wants a specific 

 research problem investigated it foots the bill itself. 

 From past results this does not appear to be a bad 

 method for the future, so long as the incentive for 

 private gain remains characteristic of the economy of 

 our Republic. 



Competition vs. Monopoly in Research 



In spite of the fact that the prospect of private gain 

 stimulates most of the worth-while metallurgical re- 

 search, active competition within a given field does not 

 necessarily make for the type of research that does the 

 country the most good in the long run. Indeed, the 

 opposite may be true. 



Good research costs money. The subsequent develop- 

 ment work and application to production usually costs 

 much more money. This money is more readily 

 obtained, and accounting more clearly shows a profit 

 on investing it, when a strong firm, even a quasi- 

 monopoly, is involved than when there are many pro- 

 ducers of the same commodity. There is less delay in 

 imdertaking research that will bring out the possibili- 

 ties and limitations of the commodity and thus make it 

 possible for engineers to use it more intelligently. 

 There is no domestic competition by primary producers 

 of aluminum." Primary and secondary aluminum 

 compete, and aluminum competes with steel, copper, 

 and other metals. Plastics offer potential competition 

 to metals. There is no permanent gain in exerting 

 sales effort to force a commodity into a service for 

 which it is neither technically nor economically adapted. 

 As Van Deventer of the Iron Age phrases it, each ma- 

 terial has its own "supremacy areas" in which its 

 technical superiority is so marked that it can readily 

 overcome a cost handicap (silver in electrical contacts 

 is a good example) ; other areas in which substitutes are 

 plentiful and the choice is to be made on the basis of 

 economics ; and still others in which alternative materials 

 are better both technologically and economically. As 

 knowledge and experience grow these areas shift. Re- 

 search to bring about a shift into supremacy area or to 

 evaluate the shifts likely to occur through the research 



■> Since this was written, a second producer is arranging to enter the field. 



improvement of competing materials can be of immense 

 value to the sales department. 



The domestic producers of aluminum are outstanding 

 in doing and reporting research that gives the cold 

 facts about the properties so far built into aluminum 

 alloys. When they report on fundamental facts, such 

 as on the equilibrium diagrams for ahnninum alloj^s, 

 those repoits are based on as precise work as any done 

 in metallurgy and are accepted as quite as credible as 

 if the work had been done by the National Bureau of 

 Standards. 



Very extensive research and development work by 

 the producers of nickel has brought early and complete 

 information on its usefulness as a metal and in alloys. 

 If the nickel business were split up among a lot of 

 producers, each much less able to finance research, the 

 sum total of research information on nickel would 

 probably be far less than we have today. 



Conversely, silicon is produced by many firms, and 

 in various forms, as ferro-silicon, silvery pig, etc. No 

 one controls the "ores" of silicon. There are a number 

 of alternate sources for many uses. While research on 

 silicon is not wholly lacking, there is no comprehensive 

 program for developing its potentialities comparable 

 with those for aluminum or nickel. We lack under- 

 standing of the role of ladle additions of silicon to cast 

 iron and use such additions empirically, probably 

 ineflRciently. Were there some firm to whom silicon 

 were the "only child," one might reasonably expect 

 that such a problem would not long remain unsolved 

 by research. 



That research is most easily inaugurated and financed 

 by strong firms with a large volume of business that 

 does not have to be divided among many competitors 

 does not mean that research is not being done profitably 

 by small metallurgical units in highly competitive 

 situations. It is so done, as has been brought out by 

 some of the case histories cited earlier. 



Research in Relation to Employment 



As Stevenson '* points out, labor -making inventions 

 leading to new industries require both longer-term 

 research and more financial courage than the mere 

 perfection of processes in minor details that lead to 

 lahoT-saving. It takes courageous leadership to de- 

 velop and exploit new and unusual projects. If 1 out 

 of 10 off-the-trail research projects started by a re- 

 search organization pans out worthy of commercial 

 application, the organization is fortunate. The other 

 9 have to be paid for. Only when the management 

 has the nerve to explore all 10 prospects thoroughly 

 can it hope to mine the rich ore bodies that will repay 

 the exploration costs for aU. Not only must the man- 



'« Stevenson, A. R. Requisites for engineering leadership. Mtchanical Enntnter- 

 ing, 61, S03-6 (December 1939). 



