By W.H. SEARLES, Chairman of the Committee, Civil Engineers' Club
of Cleveland, O.
Notwithstanding the wonderful development of our steel industries in
the last decade, the improvements in the modes of manufacture, and the
undoubted strength of the metal under certain circumstances,
nevertheless we find that steel has not altogether met the
requirements of engineers as a structural material. Although its
breaking strain and elastic limit are higher than those of wrought
iron, the latter metal is frequently preferred and selected for
tensile members, even when steel is used under compression in the same
structure. The Niagara cantilever bridge is a notable instance of this
practice. When steel is used in tension its working strains are not
allowed to be over fifty per cent. above those adopted for wrought
iron.
The reasons for the suspicion with which steel is regarded are well
understood. Not only is there a lack of uniformity in the product, but
apparently the same steel will manifest very different results under
slight provocation. Steel is very sensitive, not only to slight
changes in chemical composition, but also to mechanical treatment,
such as straightening, bending, punching, planing, heating, etc.
Initial strains may be developed by any of these processes that would
seriously affect the efficiency of the metal in service.
Among the steels, those that are softer are more serviceable and
reliable than the harder ones, especially whereever shocks and
concussions or rapidly alternating strains are to be endured. In other
words, the more nearly steel resembles good wrought iron, the more
certain it is to render lasting service when used within appropriate
limits of strain. Indeed, a wrought iron of fine quality is better
calculated to endure fatigue than any steel. This is particularly
noticeable in steam hammer pistons, propeller shafts, and railroad
axles. A better quality of wrought iron, therefore, has long been a
desideratum, and it appears now that it has at last been found.
Several years since, a pneumatic process of manufacturing wrought iron
was invented and patented by Dr. Chapin, and an experimental plant was
erected near Chicago. Enough was done to demonstrate, first, that an
iron of unprecedentedly good qualities was attainable from common pig;
and second, that the cost of its manufacture would not exceed that of
Bessemer steel. Nevertheless, owing to lack of funds properly to push
the invention against the jealous opposition which it encountered, the
enterprise came to a halt until quite recently, when its merits found
a champion in Gustav Lindenthal, C.E., member of this club, who is
now the general manager of the Chapin Pneumatic Iron Co., and under
whose direction this new quality of iron will soon be put upon the
market.
The process of manufacture is briefly as follows: The pig metal, after
being melted in a cupola and tapped into a discharging ladle, is
delivered into a Bessemer converter, in which the metal is largely
relieved of its silicon, sulphur, carbon, etc., by the ordinary
pneumatic process. At the end of the blow the converter is turned down
and its contents discharged into a traveling ladle, and quickly
delivered to machines called ballers, which are rotary reverberatory
furnaces, each revolving on a horizontal axis. In the baller the iron
is very soon made into a ball without manual aid. It is then lifted
out by means of a suspended fork and carried to a Winslow squeezer,
where the ball is reduced to a roll twelve inches in diameter. Thence
it is taken to a furnace for a wash heat, and finally to the muck
train.
No reagents are employed, as in steel making or ordinary iron
puddling. The high heat of the metal is sufficient to preserve its
fluidity during its transit from the converter to the baller; and the
cinder from the blow is kept in the ladle.
The baller is a bulging cylinder having hollow trunnions through which
the flame passes. The cylinder is lined with fire brick, and this in
turn is covered with a suitable refractory iron ore, from eight to ten
inches thick, grouted with pulverized iron ore, forming a bottom, as
in the common puddling furnace. The phosphorus of the iron, which
cannot be eliminated in the intense heat of the converter, is,
however, reduced to a minimum in the baller at a much lower
temperature and on the basic lining. The process wastes the lining
very slightly indeed. As many as sixty heats have been taken off in
succession without giving the lining any attention. The absence of any
reagent leaves the iron simply pure and homogeneous to a degree never
realized in muck bars made by the old puddling process. Thus the
expense of a reheating and rerolling to refine the iron is obviated.
It was such iron as here results that Bessemer, in his early
experiments, was seeking to obtain when he was diverted from his
purpose by his splendid discoveries in the art of making steel. So
effective is the new process, that even from the poorest grades of pig
may be obtained economically an iron equal in quality to the refined
irons made from the best pig by the ordinary process of puddling.
Numerous tests of the Chapin irons have been made by competent and
disinterested parties, and the results published. The samples here
noted were cut and piled only once from the muck bar.
Sample A was made from No. 3 mill cinder pig.
Sample B was made from No. 4 mill pig and No. 3 Bessemer pig, half and
half.
Sample C was made from No. 3 Bessemer pig, with the following results:
Sample. A B C
Tensile strength per sq. in. 56,000 60,772 64,377
Elastic limit. 34,000 .... 36,000
Extension, per cent. 11.8 .... 17.0
Reduction of area, per cent. 65.0 16.0 33.0
The tensile strength of these irons made by ordinary puddling would be
about 38,000, 40,000, and 42,000 respectively, or the gain of the iron
in tensile strength by the Chapin process is about fifty per cent. Not
only so, but these irons made in this manner from inferior pig show a
higher elastic limit and breaking strain than are commonly specified
for refined iron of best quality. The usual specifications are for
refined iron: Tensile strength, 50,000; elongation, 15 per cent.;
elastic limit, 26,000; reduction, 25 cent.
Thus the limits of the Chapin iron are from 12 to 20 per cent. above
those of refined iron, and not far below those of structural steel,
while there is a saving of some four dollars per ton in the price of
the pig iron from which it can be made. When made from the best pig
metal its breaking and elastic limits will probably reach 70,000 and
40,000 pounds respectively. If so, it will be a safer material than
steel under the same working strains, owing to its greater resilience.
Such results are very interesting in both a mechanical and economical
point of view. Engineers will hail with delight the accession to the
list of available building materials of a wrought iron at once fine,
fibrous, homogeneous, ductile, easily weldable, not subject to injury
by the ordinary processes of shaping, punching, etc., and having a
tensile strength and elastic limit nearly equal to any steel that
could safely be used in the same situation.
A plant for the manufacture of Chapin iron is now in course of
erection at Bethlehem, Pa., and there is every reason to believe that
the excellent results attained in Chicago will be more than reached in
the new works.--_Proceed. Jour. Asso. of Eng. Societies_.
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