CHAPTER XIII

PROPERTIES--_Continued_. STEEL

Its new varieties are virtually new metals, strong, tough, and heat resisting in degrees priceless to the arts . . . Minute admixtures in other alloys are most potent.

From a brief consideration of illuminants let us pass to a rapid survey of a most important group of structural materials, the steels. Here, as always, we shall find how abundant are the harvests reaped in a searching study of properties. Within the past fifty years new steels have been produced in so ample and rich a variety that we have gained what are virtually many new metals of inestimable qualities.

Steels for Strength.

In 1781 Professor Torbern Bergman, of the University of Upsala, in Sweden, showed that steel mainly differs from iron in containing about one fifth of one per cent. of plumbago, or carbon, as we would say now. Steels may contain all the way from one tenth to one and a half per cent. of carbon; the lower this percentage, the more nearly does the steel approach wrought iron in softness; as the proportion of carbon increases up to one per cent. the steel increases in tenacity, beyond one per cent. tenacity diminishes and brittleness is augmented. Hardness depends upon the percentage of carbon a steel contains. Physical conditions are almost as important as chemical composition; a mass of red-hot steel, carefully hammered or pressed is thereby strengthened, an effect due either to minimizing the process of crystallization, or to breaking up crystals as fast as they form. The microscope reveals many details of structure in steel, and has enabled the analysts greatly to economize the manufacture of desired varieties. Under the microscope steels much resemble crystalline rocks in structure, with constituents differing widely. Of these the most important is ferrite, a pure or nearly pure metallic iron, soft, weak, ductile, of high electric conductivity. Next in importance is cementite, an iron carbide (Fe₃C), harder than glass and nearly as brittle, but probably very strong under gradually and axially applied stress. A third constituent, austenite, is a solid solution of carbon, or perhaps of an iron carbide, in _gamma_ allotropic iron (there being also _alpha_ and _beta_ irons). Austenite is hard and brittle when cold, is stable at high temperatures, and is slowly transformed by reaction into compounds of ferrite or cementite. Several other ingredients of importance, as pearlite, illustrated on the opposite page, have also been studied.[14]

[14] Henry Marion Howe, “Iron, Steel and Other Alloys.” Second edition. Published by Albert Sauveur, Cambridge, Mass., 1906.

While carbon is the most decisive element in admixture, other ingredients have marked influence, silicon and manganese especially. The process invented by Bessemer, described by himself in another chapter of this book, as introduced in 1855, revolutionized the steel manufacture by its directness, cheapness and speed. It consists in burning out from pig-iron, by a hot air blast, all or nearly all its carbon. Then spiegeleisen, or other mixture, containing a definite quantity of carbon and manganese, is added to the molten mass, yielding steel of the quality desired. This method produces more rails for railroads than any competing method; in other fields it is being rivalled more and more severely by the open hearth process.

The Open Hearth Process.

Steel making by the open hearth process is chiefly due to the late Sir William Siemens. In a gas producer he gave his fuel the gaseous form, in which it is more easily controlled and more efficient than when solid. Of more importance were his regenerators, chambers of brickwork, heated by the products of combustion, and then employed to warm incoming currents of air and gas on their way to the furnace. The Siemens furnace has been modified in many ways and much improved in its details. A good example of an open hearth furnace, as planned by the late Mr. Bernard Dawson, is shown on page 165. It centers in a large hearth built of refractory materials, upon which the metal is melted as flames play over it. At each end are two regenerators filled with checker firebricks through which air or gas passes on its way to the furnace, and through which, at due intervals, the products of combustion emerge as they pass to the stack. On each side, one of the regenerators is for air, the other for gas; between them is a substantial wall to prevent any mixing before their currents reach the hearth. It is in the regenerator, which utilizes heat which otherwise would be wasted, that the open hearth displays its best feature. Its products vary in composition as its raw materials vary, whether pig-iron of a specific kind, a particular ore, or scrap; and just as in the Bessemer process, a harmful element, as phosphorus, is removed almost wholly by the addition of a suitable ingredient, such as lime. In excellence and uniformity of quality open hearth steels are preferred to those of the Bessemer converter, even for railroad rails which for years were made solely by the Bessemer process.

The Gayley Dry-Blast Process.

A remarkable improvement in blast-furnace practice, cheapening cast or pig-iron, and therefore lowering the cost of derived steels, is the dry-blast process due to Mr. James Gayley, of Pittsburg. It has long been known that blast-furnaces ask more fuel in warm and damp weather than in cold and dry weather; beginning with this familiar fact Mr. Gayley proceeded to dry the air blown into his furnaces, by passing it around large coils of iron pipes through which a freezing mixture circulated, melting the snow as formed by passing hot brine through the pipes, a few of them at a time. The air thus dried was then heated by being sent through hot blast stoves in the usual mode. This simple drying of the blast saves about 19 per cent. of the fuel, and makes the action of the furnace much more regular than when ordinary air is used. It lowers the temperature of the gases which escape from the top of the furnace, and raises their percentage of carbon dioxide, symptoms of the great increase in fuel efficiency. Atmospheric moisture has a cooling effect on the lower part of a furnace, just where the highest temperature is needed to melt the iron and slag, remove the sulphur and deoxidize the silica. A comparatively small increase of temperature by broadening the margin of effective heat, which margin at best is narrow, has the astonishing effect of economizing fuel to the extent stated, 19 per cent.[15]

[15] Henry Marion Howe, “Iron, Steel and Other Alloys.” Second edition. Cambridge, Mass., Albert Sauveur, 1906.

Steels to Order.

What is chiefly sought in steel is tensile strength, next in value is elasticity; in some cases hardness is indispensable. By varying the proportions of the carbon, silicon and manganese added to his iron, the steel-maker produces an alloy with the tenacity, elasticity or hardness he wishes. Nickel, as a further ingredient, in certain proportions yields an astonishing gain. A steel containing fifteen per cent. of nickel has shown a tensile strength of 244,000 pounds to the square inch, four times as much as before admixture; the elastic limit also was much increased. Hardness and strength tend to exclude ductility, but nickel steel is at once strong, hard and extremely ductile; hence its use for armor plate, great guns, and the barrels of small arms. Nothing but the high price of nickel prevents these alloys from having wide utilization, for they mean lighter and therefore more economical machines and engines than those of ordinary steel. Many turbines actuated by water, steam or gas, are best operated at speeds forbidden to common steel, which would fly to pieces under the centrifugal stress exerted, yet these speeds are quite feasible and safe when nickel steel is employed. This alloy brings nearer the day of mechanical flight, first promising to transportation on land and sea engines increased in power while much diminished in weight. In exceptional cases, where the expense may be borne, we may expect soon to see nickel steel used for higher towers, longer bridge-spans, thinner boilers, than those of to-day. Part of the bridge crossing Blackwell’s Island, New York, is built of nickel steel. Even with costs at their present plane, it is worth while for the designer of machinery to remember that friction is reduced when masses become smaller, power for power. It is found profitable, for instance, to use nickel steel for the cylinders of automobiles of high power.

In many tools and implements two different kinds of steel are united with decided gain. Thus the cutting edge of a cold chisel is hard and brittle, while its shank, much less hard, is tough and able to resist the shocks it receives. So also a projectile is hardened at its point and nowhere else. Plowshares are often made very hard on their surfaces, with a backing which is comparatively soft but elastic enough to suffer no harm in the blows dealt by rough ground and stones. One of the drawbacks in the use of steel is its liability to corrosion. An alloy of 30 per cent. nickel and 70 per cent. steel has proved to be corrodible in but slight measure, affording a material of great value to the arts.

Heat Treatment.

While the chemical composition of a steel is of prime importance, the quality of the steel will next depend upon its heat treatment in manufacture. The temperature to which heating is carried, the period during which it is maintained, the rate at which cooling takes place, and the circumstances of cooling, each has its effect on the character of the product. It is chiefly in this field that the steel-maker within wide limits is able to turn out an alloy either hard or soft, brittle or ductile, tenacious or weak, at pleasure. While much has been learned within the past few years as to the proper treatment of steel by heat, much still remains to be discovered.

To quote typical instances from Professor Henry Marion Howe, of Columbia University, New York:--“In the case of steel with less than 0.33 per cent. of carbon the temperature from which slow cooling occurs appears to have little influence on the tensile strength; but it is the general belief that if that temperature approaches the melting-point, the tensile strength decreases. In the case of higher-carbon steel, the tensile strength at first increases as the temperature from which slow cooling occurs rises to 800°, or even to 900° or 1000° C. Then, after varying somewhat, it falls off very abruptly in the case of steel of 0.50 per cent. of carbon, when that temperature approaches 1400°.”[16]

[16] In his “Iron, Steel and Other Alloys.” Second edition. Published by Albert Sauveur, Cambridge, Mass., 1906.

Tempering and Annealing.

For rock drills, cold chisels, milling and other tools it is necessary to use steel carefully tempered, so that brittleness is greatly reduced while considerable hardness and cutting power remain. Other changes of properties, as remarkable, follow upon subjecting steel to greater heat than that used for tempering. Says Professor Roberts-Austen:--“Three strips of steel identical in quality are taken. By bending one it is shown to be soft; if it is heated to redness and plunged in cold water it will become hard and will break on any attempt to bend it. The second strip, after heating and rapid cooling, if again heated to about the melting point of lead, will at once bend readily, but will spring back to a straight line when the bending force is removed. The third piece may be softened by being cooled slowly from a bright red heat, and this will bend easily and remain distorted. The metal has been singularly altered in its properties by comparatively simple treatment, and all these changes, it must be remembered, have been produced in a solid metal to which nothing has been added, and from which nothing has been taken away.”

It is the comparative slowness of cooling in oil, the greater slowness of cooling in air, that make these by far the best tempering processes, because the molecular re-arrangement, in which tempering consists, requires time. Often the critical temperature, at which a desired re-arrangement takes place, is declared by the metal losing all power of response to a magnet: this fact affords the steel-maker welcome aid; he has only to shut off heat as soon as his steel ceases to attract a magnet and plunge the steel into water in order to obtain the hardness he wishes.

The complex phenomena of heat treatment in steel manufacture are fully discussed by Professor H. M. Howe, in his “Iron, Steel and Other Alloys,” second edition, 1906.

Steel for Railroad Rails.

In another chapter of this book a word is said as to the form of rails at which Mr. P. H. Dudley has arrived as the outcome of years of experiment. He thus describes the properties which the steel should possess by virtue of due chemical composition and proper heat treatment:--

“Ductility to ensure power to resist the shock of the driving wheels, so that the steel may not break; resistance to abrasion, that it may not wear out; and high limit of elasticity, that it may not take a permanent set and be bent into a series of waves between its supporting ties, by the enormous pressures which the wheels of to-day throw upon it. The best composition is carbon 0.55 to 0.60 per cent., silicon 0.10 to 0.15, manganese 1.20, sulphur under 0.06, phosphorus under 0.06; with 50,000 to 60,000 granulations to the square inch. More granulations, or fewer, mean an increase of brittleness in the steel.”[17]

[17] Henry Marion Howe, “Iron, Steel and Other Alloys.” Second edition. Published by Albert Sauveur, Cambridge, Mass., 1906. And a note from Mr. P. H. Dudley to the author, May 2, 1906.

Invar: A Steel Invariable in Dimensions Whether Warmed or Cooled.

While the great strength of steel makes it of pre-eminent value in the arts, steel in the huge dimensions of modern roofs and bridges has the demerit of expanding with heat and contracting with cold in a troublesome degree. A notable case is that of the steel rails on the elevated railroad of New York. If this fault, common to all metals, can be materially reduced or abolished, then steel enters upon a new field of golden harvests. Here, by dint of acumen and skill the goal has been reached by M. Charles Edouard Guillaume, of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Paris. A few years ago he began investigating the singular magnetic qualities of nickel-steels. Then in studying expansibility by heat he discovered that when the nickel was increased to 36.2 per cent. the alloy was almost indifferent to changes of temperature, expanding but one part in one million when warmed from zero to 1° Centigrade. Because of this insensibility, the alloy at the suggestion of Professor Thury is named _invar_. In observations of invar which extended through six years, an elongation of one part in 100,000 was detected; subsequently its changes of length each year seemed less than one-millionth. This slight inconstancy may be overcome by further experiment; in the meantime while invar is not available for standards of length of the first order, such as those of the Bureau of Standards at Washington, there is a vast and useful field for the alloy. It offers itself for secondary standards, to be compared at intervals with primary standards at Washington or other capitals of the world.

A leading application will be in surveying. Already wires of invar have been employed by the Survey of France with the utmost success, dispensing with the burdensome apparatus formerly needed in compensating variations due to temperature. With invar wires ten men have advanced at the rate of five kilometers a day; ten years before, with ordinary steel measures, fifty men advanced one half a kilometer, that is, with but one fiftieth as much efficiency.

In time-keeping invar is likely to be as valuable as in surveying. At the Bureau of Standards and the Naval Observatory at Washington, pendulums of invar have been adopted with gratifying results. In ordinary watches and clocks the alloy will banish the compensating devices now requisite, of brass and steel which expand with heat and shrink with cold. For chronometers of the highest grade it is desirable that invar be improved with respect to its stability, an improvement which appears to be highly probable.

One other discovery by M. Guillaume deserves a word. He has found a nickel-steel which when warmed has the same expansibility as glass, so that it may displace platinum wire in leading an electric current into an incandescent lamp, a Crookes’ tube or similar illuminator. More singular still is another of his nickel-steels which shrinks slightly when warmed, holding out the hope of finding an alloy which will neither shrink nor expand as its temperature rises. With such a substance, of trustworthy stability, the arts would have a working material of inestimable value for theodolites, frames for microscopes and telescopes, and cameras for exact picturing.

Manganese Steel.

The magnetic properties of steel, to-day of supreme importance, have for ages excited curiosity. As long ago as 1774, Rinman observed that steel alloyed with manganese is non-magnetic. Here was a material for time-pieces which would free them from magnetic derangement. In the hands of Mr. R. A. Hadfield, of the Hecla Works, Sheffield, England, manganese steel has been produced in remarkable varieties. As the proportion of manganese is increased, the alloys manifest singular changes in their properties. When the manganese is four to six per cent., and the carbon less than one-half per cent., the alloy is brittle enough to be readily powdered by a hand hammer. When the proportion of manganese is doubled, the alloy displays great strength, which reaches its maximum when the manganese is fourteen per cent. No other material approaches manganese steel in its ability to resist abrasion; it outwears ordinary steel four times, much reducing the need for repairs, renewals, or pauses in work while worn-out parts are being replaced. It gives equally good service as the pins and bushings of dredges of the bucket-ladder type, lifting gold-bearing gravels and sands. It is used for centrifugal pumps in dredging sandy harbors, slips, or ponds, where the grit borne in the water plays havoc with ordinary steel surfaces. In ore-crushing manganese steel is particularly effective; a pair of jaws built of it have crushed 21,000 tons of flinty ore and were still good for 4,000 to 6,000 tons more, while the best chilled iron plates failed to crush as little as 4,000 tons.

This alloy is so hard that it cannot be machined or drilled by ordinary means; it must be treated by emery or carborundum wheels. Yet it is so malleable that it can be used for rivets when headed cold. It is so tough that it may be bent and twisted at will without rupture, so that it forms railroad switches, frogs, and crossings of great durability.

High-Speed Tool Steels.

Until 1868, the steel tools used in lathes and drills, planers and so on, were limited to the moderate pace at which they remained cool enough to keep their temper. Beyond that quiet gait they became worthless, snapped apart, or melted as if wax. In 1868 Robert Forester Mushet, of the Titanic Steel and Iron Company, Coleford, England, discovered an alloy of steel, tungsten and manganese which took rough cuts at a depth and with a speed unknown before. This alloy, because hardened simply in air, was called “air-hardening” or “self-hardening.” Thirty years afterward at the Bethlehem Steel Works, Pennsylvania, a tool of this steel was heated to what was feared to be a ruinously high temperature; experiment proved that the tool could be used at a heat, and therefore at a speed, never attained before in the workshop. From that hour hundreds of investigators have proceeded to combine steel with tungsten in various percentages, adding manganese, molybdenum, chromium, silicon, and vanadium. Of these ingredients much the most important are tungsten and molybdenum. Particular pains must be taken thoroughly to anneal the alloy when worked into bars.

As to the gain introduced by high-speed tool steels let Mr. J. M. Gledhill testify from the experience of the Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Company’s works at Manchester:--

“Formerly where forgings were first made and then machined with ordinary self-hardening steel, a production, from bars eighteen and one half by six and five eighth inches, of eight bolts in ten hours was usual. With the new steel forty similar bolts from the rolled bar are now turned out in the same time, further abolishing the cost of first rough forging the bolt to form. The speed is 160 feet a minute, the depth of cut three-quarter inch, of feed 1/32 inch, the weight removed from each bolt sixty-two pounds, or 2,480 pounds per day, the tool being ground only once in that time. This is a fairly typical case. Just as striking is the behavior of this steel in twist drills, which supersede the punching process by passing through stacks of thin steel plates quite as swiftly and economically as a punch, while avoiding the liability to distress which accompanies the action of a punch.”

With the quickening of pace due to these steels, the designer is asked to remodel machine tools so that they may stand up against new pressures and speeds. A lathe thus re-patterned is mentioned by Mr. Gledhill: it absorbs sixty-five horse power as against twelve formerly, and has a belt trebled in width so as to measure twelve inches. Mr. Oberlin Smith expects high-speed steel to have other effects on machine design than the conferring of new strength: he looks for a rivalry keener than ever between rotary and reciprocating tools. In his judgment the milling tool, which can be speeded indefinitely, will encroach more and more on the planer, limited as the planer is by its movement being to and fro.

When work on cast iron must proceed at the utmost pace, a jet of air, delivered to the chips with force enough to clear them off as fast as they are formed, enables the speed to be quickened, while, at the same time, the life of the cutter is lengthened.[18]

[18] The foregoing pages on steel have been revised by Professor Bradley Stoughton, of the School of Mines, Columbia University, New York. He contributes at the end of this chapter a brief list of books for the reader who may wish to know something of the literature of iron and steel.

Alloys for Electro-Magnets.

In electrical art the alloy employed for electro-magnets should be permeable by magnetism fully and easily, otherwise dynamos and motors will waste energy as their magnetism is constantly gained, lost, or reversed. Once more the experimenter is Mr. Robert A. Hadfield of Sheffield, who produces an excellent alloy by uniting iron with 2.75 per cent. silicon, .08 per cent. manganese, .03 per cent. sulphur, .03 per cent. phosphorus. This alloy is improved by being heated to between 900° and 1100° C., followed by quick cooling; then being reheated to between 700° to 800° C., and cooled very slowly.

Iron is largely used as an electrical conductor, so that it is well to know how its conductivity is affected by ordinary admixtures. In experiments with sixty-eight specimens, Professor W. F. Barrett alloyed iron separately with carbon, aluminium, silicon, chromium, manganese, nickel, cobalt, and tungsten. In every case there was a loss of conductivity, and usually in a degree proportioned to the atomic weight of the added ingredient. Between one element and another there was often a wide disparity of effect. For example, in admixtures, each of one per cent., tungsten increased the resistance of a conductor by two per cent., while aluminium did seven-fold as much harm.

Magnetic Alloys of Non-Magnetic Ingredients.

We have so long been accustomed to thinking that there must be iron in everything magnetic that we hear with astonishment that metals each insusceptible of magnetism, when united strongly display this property. Such is the discovery of Mr. Fr. Heusler, of Dillenburg, near Wiesbaden. He noticed one day that an alloy of manganese, tin, and copper adhered to a tool which he had accidentally magnetized. In the course of experiments Mr. Heusler found that carbon, silicon, and phosphorus did not confer magnetism; while arsenic, antimony, and bismuth did so, all three metals being diamagnetic, that is, placing themselves at right angles to a common steel magnet above which they are freely suspended. An alloy of remarkable magnetic strength was composed of copper 61.5 per cent., manganese 23.5 per cent., and aluminium 15 per cent. This alloy is brittle and considerable changes of temperature but slightly affect its magnetism. When a little lead is added magnetism disappears between 60° and 70° C. This alloy therefore is magnetic when placed in cold water; when the water is heated the magnetism disappears before the water boils, only to reappear when the water cools. The main interest of these discoveries is that the new alloys bridge the gap betwixt magnetic and diamagnetic bodies, that is, they join the iron, nickel, and cobalt group, which place themselves along the line of a magnetic field, with the diamagnetic elements, bismuth, antimony, zinc, tin, lead, silver, and arsenic, which place themselves at right angles to the lines of a magnetic field. We have been accustomed to suppose that magnetism is a property possessed by only a few elements; these alloys show us that magnetism may arise as a result of grouping atoms, none of which by itself has any magnetism whatever. Indeed it may be possible to make an alloy more magnetic than iron, furnishing the electrician with electro-magnets of new power.

Anti-Friction Alloys.

We have briefly glanced at recent progress in the art of alloying in so far as it has produced steels of new strength, elasticity, or hardness; new ability to resist abrasion or high temperatures, new capacity for magnetism, new indifference to changes of temperature as affecting dimensions. Alloying has of late years conferred other gifts upon industry, of which one example may be cited from among many of equal importance. Friction levies so grievous a tax upon the mechanic and the engineer that they are quick to seize upon any material for bearings which reduces friction. As the result of extensive experiments Dr. C. B. Dudley recommends an alloy of tin, copper, a little phosphorus, with ten to fifteen per cent. of lead. He finds the loss of metal by wear under uniform conditions diminishes as the lead is increased and the tin diminished.

Influence of Minute Admixtures.

We have seen how remarkably the properties of iron are affected by minute additions of carbon which may be assumed to enter into chemical union with the metal. The properties of other metals may be influenced by minute quantities of added elements, although in quantities so small as to preclude the possibility of their forming ordinary chemical compounds. It by no means follows, however, that the atom of an added element does not exert a direct influence. In Professor Roberts-Austen’s laboratory, in London, two ladles were filled with exceptionally pure bismuth; into one ladle a tiny fragment of tellurium was placed. The ladles were poured each into a separate mold, and when the metal became cold it was fractured by a hammer. The bismuth to which the tellurium was added had become minutely crystalline; while that which remained pure had crystallized in broad mirror-like planes. One reflected light as a mirror; the other, containing the tellurium, scattered the light it received. With no guidance but that of mere inspection, one would have said that the two substances were distinct elements, and yet the only difference was that one contained 1/2000 part of tellurium and the other no tellurium at all.

Submarine telegraphy presents us with a case as striking: were its copper wire to contain but one-thousandth part of bismuth, the line would be so much reduced in conductivity as to be commercially worthless: quite as harmful are mixtures of antimony. In coining, the addition to gold of one five-hundredth part by weight of bismuth produces an alloy which crumbles under the die and refuses to take an impression. In the manufacture of such dies it is necessary to employ a steel containing 0.8 to 1 per cent. of carbon and no manganese. It is usual, says Professor Roberts-Austen, to water-harden and temper it to a straw color, and a really good die will strike 40,000 coins without being fractured or deformed, but if the steel contains 0.1 per cent. too much carbon, it would not strike 100 pieces without cracking, and if it contained 0.2 per cent. too little carbon, it would probably be hopelessly distorted and its engraved surface destroyed in the attempt to strike a single coin. As in coining so in steam-engineering. A little arsenic added to copper improves it for the fire-boxes of locomotives. Boilers of old, formed of copper slightly admixed with sulphur, lasted longer than modern boilers built of copper free from sulphur. Antimony behaves like arsenic, and in due proportion strengthens copper; bismuth, on the contrary, weakens copper, and a perceptible effect is wrought by a mere trace. Nickel is made malleable by adding extremely small quantities of phosphorus, magnesium, or zinc.

BOOKS ON IRON AND STEEL

Chosen and annotated by Professor Bradley Stoughton, School of Mines, Columbia University, New York.

(Graduated Yale University, 1893, as Ph.B. In 1896 Assistant in Mining and Metallurgy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, where he received the degree of B.S. In 1898-99, metallurgist of South Works. Illinois Steel Co., South Chicago. Superintendent in 1900 of steel foundry, Briggs-Seabury Gun and Ammunition Co., Derby, Conn. Manager of Bessemer plant, Benjamin Atha & Co., Newark, N. J., in 1901. Instructor in metallurgy, Columbia University, 1902-03. Next year became Adjunct Professor of Metallurgy, Columbia University and, as consulting metallurgist, entered the firm of Howe & Stoughton, New York.)

BALE, GEORGE R. Modern Foundry Practice. Part I, 1902. Part II, 1906. London, Technical Publishing Co. 3_s._ 6_d._ each.

An admirable work, the only one covering the whole field. The author thoroughly understands his subject, and writes most intelligibly. The principles underlying every detail of practice are clearly explained.