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Unique steel making laboratory
250
CURRENT TOPICS.
[J. F. I.
Unique Steel Making Laboratory.--( Manufacturers' Record,.Vol. CVII, No. io.) Through use of a miniature steel plant, the first of its kind in the steel industry, a unique approach to research is being made in the new research and development laboratory of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, Pittsburgh. Here, steel making facilities such as an open hearth furnace, heat treating furnaces and rolling mills of pilot plant size are used in conjunction with extensively equipped chemical, physical and metallographic laboratories in a direct approach to solving the problems of steel quality. This overcomes the handicap established in the past when it has been the general practice to conduct research by a laboratory procedure which resulted in advancements being made faster than they could be tested and applied in the mills. A feature of the equipment in the new laboratory is a small open hearth furnace, which is recuperative, having a capacity of I5oo pounds. There is installed, in connection with this, an unusual type burner. Ingots cast weigh from I85 to 900 pounds as compared with ingots from commercial production which weigh 3 ~ tons to IO tons. There is also provided a 375 pound electric arc furnace used for experiments on slag and steel making, and a 30 pound electric induction furnace which affords the most exacting control over experimental steel making. A cupola is available to supply molten iron for a small Bessemer converter which will be constructed later. Two rolling mills are used in the laboratory, one for primary reduction of ingots and the other for further reducing the bars into convenient sizes for test specimens. R. H. O.
CURRENT TOPICS.
[J. F. I.
Unique Steel Making Laboratory.--( Manufacturers' Record,.Vol. CVII, No. io.) Through use of a miniature steel plant, the first of its kind in the steel industry, a unique approach to research is being made in the new research and development laboratory of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, Pittsburgh. Here, steel making facilities such as an open hearth furnace, heat treating furnaces and rolling mills of pilot plant size are used in conjunction with extensively equipped chemical, physical and metallographic laboratories in a direct approach to solving the problems of steel quality. This overcomes the handicap established in the past when it has been the general practice to conduct research by a laboratory procedure which resulted in advancements being made faster than they could be tested and applied in the mills. A feature of the equipment in the new laboratory is a small open hearth furnace, which is recuperative, having a capacity of I5oo pounds. There is installed, in connection with this, an unusual type burner. Ingots cast weigh from I85 to 900 pounds as compared with ingots from commercial production which weigh 3 ~ tons to IO tons. There is also provided a 375 pound electric arc furnace used for experiments on slag and steel making, and a 30 pound electric induction furnace which affords the most exacting control over experimental steel making. A cupola is available to supply molten iron for a small Bessemer converter which will be constructed later. Two rolling mills are used in the laboratory, one for primary reduction of ingots and the other for further reducing the bars into convenient sizes for test specimens. R. H. O.