Abstracts of Papers Presented in Drill Steel Sessions New York Meeting - Breakage and Heat Treatment of Rock-drill Steel

fractured ingot will show a complete diagonal structure. If the temperature is lowered, the equi-axed zone is larger and the pine tree growth is less. A small ingot, though, is prone to this columnar structure, even though the casting temperature is kept down. The speed of cooling after solidification is slower in the hollow ingot than in the solid, therefore the granulation, which takes place after the crystals have formed from the liquid metal, is apt to produce larger grains than in the solid ingot. This is not a detriment. The original crystal size is of much more importance. The size of the grains due to this granulation constantly varies in response to mechanical work and subsequent heat treatment. Surface weakness, as shown by seaming and checking on the exterior when working or by cracking in hardening, is in some measure the result of the surface stresses of the ingot when cast. The temperature of the ingot mold or speed of freezing of the exterior of the ingot is of great importance and much seamy and cracked steel is caused by a too quickly cooled skin. Ingots that are turned or milled all over will not seam very much in working, in fact they are practically free from seams, whereas an ingot rolled without a preliminary machining operation is full of seams and cracks, some long and some short. It has been said that these short seams and cracks in the surface of the bar are the result of elongated depressions in the surface of the ingot and that if an ingot is cast very smooth it should give fewer surface defects. This is partly true, but an ingot cast very hot and having a very smooth skin will crack and seam very badly in the mill, as will the surface of an ingot poured very cold, which is very crinkly, because of the low temperature of the metal. The cause of the cracks and seams in one is not the cause of the cracks and seams in the other. The tube method of hollow drill steel manufacture is superior to the older method because of: (1) Greater freedom from external and internal straining; (2) the inherent small crystal size; (3) absence of harmful segregation, resulting in weakness of wall of hole. (4) less liability for steel to crack in inside of hole during forging or hardening; (5) toughening effect, arising from mild steel wall of hole limiting the intense hardening on quenching. Breakage and Heat Treatment or Rock-drill Steel By A. E. Perkins, Pittsburgh, Pa. Actual figures showing the superiority of one section or another are difficult to obtain. In a given size of steel, however, the cruciform sec -tion shows the most breakage; it is inherently a weak section. It contains less steel per foot than any other standard section of the same size and when rolled the wings tend to cool off setting up cooling stresses.