Pittsburg Paper - The Mobility of Molecules of Cast-Iron

It has been generally accepted as a fact that cast-iron, under the influence of repeated shocks, becomes brittle, and will finally break under a blow which otherwise it would have withstood. It will probably surprise metallurgists, therefore, to learn that experiment disproves the supposed fact, and establishes exactly its opposite. The result of about a thousand tests of bars of cast-iron of all grades, from the softest foundry-mixtures to the strongest car-wheel metal, enables me to assert with confidence that, within limits, cast-iron is materially strengthened by subjection to repeated shocks or blows. It is very well known that the usual process of annealing castings—such, for example, as car-wheels—increases their strength by relieving cooling-strains. But it is not well known (if known at all prior to this announcement) that the molecules of cast-iron are capable of movement—for they do not touch each other*—without the necessity of heating the casting, and that they can thus rearrange themselves in comfortable relation to their neighbors, and relieve the overcrowding near the surface of the casting. In more technical words, a molecular annealing may be accomplished at ordinary temperatures which will release the strains in the castings, precisely as does annealing by slow cooling in heated pits or ovens. A statement so surprising should not be made without sufficient data to establish its correctness beyond cavil, since it is contrary to former