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By Hugh Archbald

IT is possible to construct a simple diagram of the earnings, or the production, of the men employed at a coal mine that will show not only if the conditions tend toward contentment among the men, but if the operating distribution of the work is correct. As earnings are the greatest cause of discontent, even exceeding all the other causes, if contentment exists in the matter of earnings, the likelihood of other discontents flaring up is greatly lessened. The basis of such a diagram would be the Gaussian curve of the normal variation in human ability. Such a curve has long been recog-nized. H. L. Moore,1 in discussing the quantitative relation between wages and ability says: "It has been pointed out that industrial efficiency is dependent upon physical, mental, and moral qualities, and these qualities . . . there is good reason for regarding as being distributed according to the Gaussian law..

Jan 7, 1924

By Morris Cohen, Robert C. Ruhl

Fe-Ni-B alloys were inresligated by X-ray diffraclion after splat quenching. Although this rapid cooling did not produce a measurable supersaturation of dissol1ed boron in either binary Fe-B or Ni-B alloys, a marked increase in dissolved boron was achieved by the splal quenching of lernary Fe-Ni-B alloys. Boron additions up to 2.0 wl pcl to Fe-13Ni and Fe-24Ni alloys cause an increase in retained austenite from 0 to 59 pet and to 92 pet, respectively. The martensitic phase in the Fe-13Ni-9 at. pct B alloy is .found to conlain about 0.6 at. pet interstitial boron, as evidenced by the tetragonality of this phase, and about 3.6 at. pct substilutional boron, us deduced from the lattice paratrieler decrease, the balance of the boron being precipitated as (Fe,Ni)aR. The austenitic Fe-Ni-B plznses also contain both interstitial and substitutional boron. Iron-Boron System. The phase diagram and related information about the solid solutions and intermediate phases in the Fe-B system are given by ansen,' Elliott.2 and Pearson.1 The equilibrium solid solubility of boron in both ferrite and austenite is quite small: the maximum solid solubility of 0.02 wt pct B (0.11 at. pct B) occurs in iron at the eutectic temperature of 1150°C. while the maximum solubility in a iron is less than 0.01 wt pct.l There is disagreement in the literature as to whether these solid solutions are substitutional or interstitial. Based on the measured activation energy of boron diffusion in iron, it appears likely that boron moves interstitially in austenite. 4 However, this observation does not rule out the possibility that some of the dissolved boron may also occupy substitutional sites in this phase. Investigations of internal friction of boron in iron have suggested that boron is interstitial there.' Shevelev, 5 on the other hand, reports a decrease in the ferrite lattice parameter with dissolved boron content, thus indicating a substitutional solution. Unfortunately. Shevelev's methods and analysis are unclear. Goldhoff and spretnak6 have measured the lattice parameters of pure iron and an Fe-0.005 wt pct B (0.027 at. pct) alloy at both room temperature (ferrite) and from 920° to 1200°C (austenite). They reporte: a lattice contraction in the ferrite of 0.0003 ± 0.0002 due to boron, thus indicating a predominately substitutional solution. Appreciable (0.0010 to 0.0060) lattice contractions were found in boron-containing austenites, but these effects were much larger than could be accounted for by the substitutional solution of all the boron present. Nickel-Boron System. Elliott 2 gives a summary of thephase diagram and recent work on this system. The solubility of boron in nickel reaches a maximum of 0.03 wt pct at the eutectic temperature of 1080°C. Iron-Nickel System. ansen' presents the equilibrium diagram for this system and also discusses the metastable austenitic and martensitic phases along with the a=? transformations. The lattice parameters of Fe-Ni ferrites have been recently redetermined by Abrahamson and Lopata.7 Their data, Fig. 1, show an unusual change in slope at about 1.7 at. pct Ni. Very few measurements of the lattice parameters of Fe-Ni martensites are available in the literature. The values of Roberts and Owen8 are considerably higher than those measured in the course of the present work: they find that a, is constant at 2.874? from 8 to 30 at. pct Ni. Both the slope change in the ferrite parameters and the occurrence of a maximum plateau in the marten-sitic lattice parameters vs composition denote the

Jan 1, 1970

By Roy A. Lindgren

SINCE the year 1643, when the first blast furnace in America for treating iron ore was built at Saugus, Mass., out of mica schist quarried in the neighboring district, the procurement of a suitable refractory for furnace lining has been a problem of concern to the operators of furnaces. The stacks built of mica schist continued to smelt iron ore until about 1836, when, according to F. H. Norton, the first firebrick were produced', at Queens Run, Pa. Other writers speak of brick having been molded and burned in Massachusetts about the year 1834. In 1841, Andrew Russell began to produce medium refractory plastic clay brick near East Liverpool, Ohio, that were used for lining blast furnaces'. The well-known Kentucky clay-producing district was not opened up until the year 1871, but since then it has produced a large percentage of the linings for iron blast furnaces. While some strides have been made by the refractories industry during the 100 years that have passed since the first firebrick were produced, it has been only during the last two decades that any real progress has been made towards bettering the product, even though the method of production had improved. Perhaps the fault lies with the user of the brick rather than with the producer, for not sooner demanding a supe¬rior product. During the past 15 years the tonnage produced per lining has increased from 500,000 gross tons to 1,000,000 gross tons, and now some furnaces are producing 1,600,000 gross tons and better on a single lining. It is true that enlarged capacity of furnaces and improved practice have accounted for some of this increase in tonnage, nevertheless better quality in firebrick must be given credit for its share. However, we are not yet ready to say that we have reached a maximum life of furnace lining. We believe that a better product can be produced and that the refractories industries of America will, through their extensive research depart-

Jan 1, 1937

By R. W. Guard

ALTHOUGH etching techniques have been developed for revealing dislocation sites in several metals and ionic crystals,h t is valuable to extend the technique to new metals. An etch pit method for nickel has been developed on the basis some suggestions of Dr. John R. Cuthill of the National Bureau of Standards who had observed etch pits in creep specimens of nickel. The etchant used was proposed first by wensch2 for revealing grain size in nickel. The present paper describes the evidence that the technique can be used to reveal dislocations and gives the conditions under which etching can be carried out. The specimens examined were vacuum melted high-purity Ni (99.985 pct Ni) and commercial "A" nickel (99.8 pct Ni). Both materials contained greater than 0.008 pet C and had been annealed in nitrogen or dry hydrogen at 1100o to 1200°C. This gave a grain size of 1.5 mm in the high-purity nickel and 0.050 mm in "A" nickel. Tensile specimens (0.254 in. diam) were deformed from 0.25 to 10 pct at room temperature and then heated for 1/2 hr at different temperatures from 400" to 900°C. The specimens were sectioned longitudinally then polished electrolytically in 60 pct H2SO4 and etched in 35 pct H3PO4 solution at 0.2 to 0.4 v for 30 sec to 3 min. The best method for setting the proper voltage for etching is to increase the voltage until gas bubbles are evolved vigorously from the specimen and then cut it back by 10 pct. It is necessary to heat the specimen above 500°C after deformation in order that etch pits will be formed. This "decoration" treatment permits carbon to segregate to the dislocation rendering them sensitive to etching. It was demonstrated that carbon was the decorating impurity by decarburizing some specimens in wet H2 at 1200°C. The susceptibility to etch pitting was lost following this treatment but could be restored by carburizing in contact with graphite. Some rearrangement of the dislocations in the as-deformed structure occurs on heating at 500oC and above so that the technique can not be used to study the nature of dislocation patterns in deformed specimens. Extended etching does not change the number of pits although the background becomes rough and the pits quite large. The polycrystalline specimens with various strains were examined after annealing at different temperatures. Typical patterns are shown in Figs. 1 and 2. In the unstrained specimen, Fig. 1, the density of pits is 2.5 X 10' per sq cm. All grains show pits regardless of their orientation although there is a

Jan 1, 1961

By Thirumalai, K.

Although the term "spalling" has long been known, Norton l first referred to its usage for the fracture or disintegration of materials subjected to rapid temperature changes. Spalling of ceramic materials at high temperatures has received attention in the past. Removal of the char formed during ablation in re-entry of space vehicles has been referred to as mechanical spalling. The first experiments to evaluate the process of rock fragmentation by thermal spalling were conducted by Stoces using a series of gasoline burners on the quartz veins of the Zinnwald deep mines in Germany. After the development of rocket-jet burners, the principles of 'thermal spalling combined with high fluid momentum found wide practical application in rocks. The well-known jet piercing process for drilling blastholes in taconite and for jet channeling in the quarrying of granite are among the more notable of these application^.

Jan 1, 1970

By W. J. O'CONNOR

THE production of lead in the United States for the period from 1720 to 1912 was 10,432,668 tons valued at $924,600,000. The average price during this period was 4.4c. a pound, although lead sold at times below 3 cents. We know that in the early days of lead smelting in Montana lead was deliberately lost in the slag and only enough reduced as bullion to collect the silver. This bullion was freighted by ox team to Corinne, Utah, the terminus of the railroad at that time, and shipped to Swansea or Omaha, Neb., for refining. The slag from some of the above mentioned operations contained as much as 15 per cent lead and has since been resmelted. Since 1921 the production of lead has increased each year and the price and tonnage have been as follows :

Jan 1, 1926

PRESIDENTS DAVID THOMAS 1871 R W RAYMOND 1872-1874 A L HOLLEY1875 ABRAM S HEWITT 1876 T STERRY HUNT 1877 ECKLEY B COXE 1878 - 1879 WILLIAM P SHINN 1880 WILLIAM METCALF 1881 RICHARD P ROTHWELL 1882 ROBERY W HUNT 1883 JAMES C, BAYLES 1884-1885 ROBERT H RICHARDS 1886 THOMAS EGLESTON 1887 WILLIAM B POTTER 1888 RICHARD PEARCE 1889 ADAM S HEWITT 1890 JOHN BIRKINBINE 1891-1892 H M HOWE 1893 JOHN FRITZ 1894 J D WEEKD 1895

Jan 1, 1923

By Kyle Wightman

INTRODUCTION CRA Limited is the largest mining group in Australia by value of sales and the second largest company in Australia in terms of share market capitalisation. In the past 25 years, CRA, its predecessors and affiliates have been involved in a number of mining and further processing developments in Australia and elsewhere. Many of these have been financed using project financing techniques. These include Comalco's development of the Weipa bauxite deposits in Northern Queensland in the late 1950's, the Hamersley iron ore developments in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in the mid 1960's, the Queensland Alumina Limited alumina refinery in Gladstone, Queensland, at about the same time, and the Bougainville copper project in 1969/70. In the past three years CRA has again utilised project financing techniques to fund its Tarong steaming coal project in Queensland, the Blair Athol steaming coal project also in that State and CRA's interest in the Argyle diamond project in the Kimberley region of Western Austrlia. PROJECT FINANCE DEFINED Nevitt Definition Nevitt's is the most frequently quoted definition - "A financing of a particular economic unit in which a lender is satisfied to look initially to the cash flows and earnings of the economic unit as the source of funds from which a loan will be repaid and to the assets of the economic unit as collateral for the loan." Risk and Balance Sheet Treatment It is important to focus in more detail on two aspects of project financing, risk and balance sheet treatment. The assessment of the various elements of risk in a project and the sharing of that risk between sponsors and lenders is the most critical feature. At one end of the spectrum is full absorption of risk by the sponsor(s). This can be described as "on risk" or "on credit" or "full recourse" to the sponsor(s) and is effectively a corporate financing. At the other end of the spectrum the lenders absorb the whole risk in a non-recourse financing which is "off risk" or "off credit" for the sponsor. The other aspect is the sponsor's balance sheet treatment. If the balance sheet of the economic unit undertaking the project and the financing need not be consolidated into the balance sheet of the sponsor (because ownership does not exceed 50%) then the financing may be described as off-¬balance sheet. If consolidation is required then the financing is described as on-balance sheet. Most project financings involve some recourse to the sponsor, i.e. they are limited recourse. Very few are non-recourse or off credit to the sponsor. Limited recourse financings may be on-balance sheet although many may also be off-balance sheet insofar as consolidation is concerned. However, sponsor support may very well be a contingent liability to the sponsor and require disclosure by way of note to the balance sheet should consolidation not be required. CORPORATE FINANCE CONTRASTED A financing which is on credit or full recourse to the sponsor, whether it is directly borrowed or guaranteed by that sponsor, is a corporate financing. Lenders will tend to base their credit assessment on a historical assessment of the sponsor's activities and its financial results rather than an assessment of the project or a detailed assessment of the future activities and prospects of the sponsor. PROJECT FINANCE - A BORROWER'S PERCEPTION Although CRA could choose to arrange all finance on a corporate basis (except perhaps for the very largest projects or acquisitions), project financing techniques provide a number of specific advantages which CRA has noted and which should be carefully considered by a project sponsor. Advantages

Jan 1, 1985

By A. V. UDELL

OF all the metals that have from time to time been called the "Wonder Metal," mercury, often called quicksilver, is probably the most deserving of this designation. A wonder metal it must have been to those workers of an earlier day who named it after that Latin god of commerce and gain, characterized as the fleet messenger of the gods and the conductor of souls to the lower world. The word mercury has been used to indicate a carrier of tidings, a bearer of news, a nimble or clever person, a hawker, and a skillful thief. All of these attributes, and more, are recognizable in this metal, the technical terminology of which is "Hydragyrum," meaning water-silver, and from which the chemical symbol "Hg" is derived. Fickle in its occurrence in nature, simple in its metallurgy, illusive in captivity, it serves man in life or death, in war or peace, in commerce, science and arts, in mining, agriculture, and forestry with a versatility found in no other element.

Jan 1, 1929

William H. Blauvelt, Syracuse, N. Y.:—Is the coal itself from which the briquettes are made of good quality for steam-ing-purposes? Mr. Parker :—It is an anthracite coal mined near Bank-head arid used on the Canadian Pacific railroad. It contains about 83 of carbon, 8 of ash, and 8 per cent. of volatile material. With regard to briquetting of a mixture of fine coal and coke-dust, I understand that a plant has been installed near Detroit in which coke is mixed with anthracite; also the plant of the United Gas Improvement Co. near Philadelphia is briquetting a mixture of anthracite coal, the resultant briquettes being used in the gas-retorts. Mr. Blauvelt:—The purpose of the Detroit briquette-plant of the Solvay Process Co. has been partly to use up the coke-breeze from the by-product ovens and partly to utilize the pitch. There is no necessity for mixing anthracite with the coke-breeze, but the supply of breeze is limited, and anthracite

Jan 1, 1909

By Anthony Lucas

THE discovery of oil in 1901 on the Spindletop dome, Texas, inaugurated a new industry on the Gulf Coast, an industry which has grown with the discovery of successive fields, until today it engages the services of thousands of workers and employs enormous capital. New fields are being discovered from time to time and doubtless some still remain to be found, though of late years discoveries have become more infrequent. Nowadays several hundred dry holes are drilled each year in a fruitless and blind effort to discover new fields, for as yet geologic science has developed no effectual method of locating the coastal oil deposits in advance of drilling. Moreover, despite the occasional discovery of new fields, the total production of the Gulf Coast is today no greater than it was in 1906, for the added production of the new fields has been offset by the rapid decline and more or less complete exhaustion of some of the older ones. Careful geologic work within the fields has in some cases increased the production temporarily, but has developed no really new supplies. The Gulf Coast oil industry seems to have passed its period of greatest expansion and to be declining at a fairly steady rate, and this condition is naturally viewed with alarm by the more farsighted operators. In my opinion, the time has come for the adoption of radical and aggressive methods of prospecting, and a fraction of the money wasted yearly in drilling shallow wells in hopeless locations might well be devoted to this purpose. Many facts lead me to believe that all the salt-dome oil has had a common origin; that it has migrated up from considerable

Jan 7, 1918

By A. L., Bailey

All who are even generally aware of the tremendous rate of increase in coal washing operations must realize the growing importance of the float-and-sink test. I believe it is conservative to estimate that, in the past decade, the dollar volume of float-and-sink testing has increased tenfold. It is a simple matter of economy, then, to examine the factors that determine the cost of adequate float-and-sink testing. When the Coal Preparation Section of the Bureau of Mines entered upon a greatly expanded program of such work in connection with the synthetic liquid fuels investigations, it seemed advisable to examine these factors experimentally. The principal consideration that differentiates float-and-sink test sampling from general purpose sampling, is that the original particle size must be preserved. Therefore, the total cost of the test will be directly affected by any standard that might be proposed to limit sample bulk reduction at any given particle size. For this reason, the relationship of sample size to variability of results was the first factor to be studied experimentally.

Jan 1, 1949

By C. McCulloch

OPEN-PIT mining of coal is relatively a recent innovation; men still active in the industry can trace its development. Re- viewing the growth of operations from the original horse-drawn scrapers, through the various stages of power equipment to the huge strip- ping shovels of today, one also notes changes in the methods of what the coal man calls preparation at the face. We really should not call it face preparation because, in contrast to underground mining, a face does not exist in strip mining. Further, preparation of the coal for market at the loading point has already, in but a few years, become largely of historic interest only and modern mines as well as old mines recently modernized rely almost entirely on separate and elaborate preparation plants to produce marketable coal. This practice was not voluntarily adopted by the producer but was forced upon him by the inadequacy of previous

Jan 1, 1939

By D. Roberts

SUMMARY In order to accommodate a new plant in a limestone quarry in the Mendip Hills, it became necessary to excavate a potentially unstable disused face of the quarry. A simple two-dimensional graphical method was used to analyse a failure, which occurred during a period of exceptionally heavy rain in 1968, and the results of this analysis were used in estimating the stability of the proposed excavation. The presence of water in vertical fissures and tension cracks was found to be a dominant factor in determining the stability of these faces. The results of this approximate analysis were used as a guide in deciding upon the final slope design and the purpose of presenting this example is to illustrate how the various factors involved in arriving at this design were weighed to arrive at a compromise between theoretical recommendations and practical considerations. INTRODUCTION The successful outcome of a geological and geochemical survey to prove adequate re- serves of high quality limestone, suitable for producing burnt lime, led to planning for the installation of the necessary plant at Amalgamated Roadstone Corporation's Batts Combe Quarry at Cheddar in Somerset. Topographic and property boundary limits added to restrictions which were likely to be imposed by any forthcoming planning consents and restricted the choice of plant location to one site. The particular site is, in fact, the main floor area of the original quarry which, like many hillside quarries, had been worked with just one face. Before a benching scheme had been introduced on higher ground, the original face had attained a height of 230 ft. and sloped at angles of 58º to 64º. Fig. I shows the present configuration of the disused quarry face and the present working area above. The floor area below the disused face accommodates the existing crushing, conveying, and screening plant. The new facilities for lime burning are to be in addition to the existing main line business of producing roadstone and concrete aggregates and, although a new aggregate production plant would be included in the new installation, no disturbance of current production was to be contemplated.

Jan 1, 1972

By E. Lifshin, R. E. Hanneman

QUANTITATIVE applications of the electron micro-beam probe frequently involve the evaluation of complex mathematical expressions and/or the analysis of large amounts of experimental data. The purpose of this communication is to describe briefly a versatile and useful computer program system that is applicable to analyze rapidly a wide variety of practical microprobe problems. This system consists of a group of ten FORTRAN programs that can be stored on tape, cards, or in the memory disc of the computer. These programs, or links, can be run individually or in any prespecified sequence without interrupting the operation of the computer or without destroying information which is being transfered from one link to another. For the program system described here a GE-235 computer with disc storage was used, so that the DCHAIN method of program linking was employed. Included in the library are programs to: 1) initiate analysis of a new set of data and transfer control between all other programs in any predetermined manner; 2) generate theoretical calibration curves of composition vs relative intensity; 3) generate empirical deviation parameters from least-square fits of experimental calibration data from standards of known composition; 4) convert raw X-ray data to corrected composition; 5) determine inter diffusion coefficients by Matano analysis of con centrat ion -distance data on a uniaxial diffusion couple; 6) determine activation energies and frequency factors of temperature-activated processes such as diffusion; and 7) generate calibration curves for determination of the thickness of thin films using microanalysis. A detailed description of these computer programs and their underlying principles is available on request from the authors."' The first program to generate theoretical calibration curves of corrected relative intensities vs composition uses the Poole and Thomas atomic number correction' and the Philibert absorption factor' with a voltage-dependent mass absorption coefficient for electrons in the alloy. A modified Castaing fluores- cence correction is also used which includes the effects of both Ka and KO radiation and over voltage.' Once the theoretical curves have been calculated in 1 wt pct intervals, these results are least-squares fit to obtain Ziebold deviation parameters' which are stored in COMMON in the computer memory. The net discrepancies between the original theoretical calibration curve and the regenerated curve using the Ziebold parameter are computed. Although this link is explicitly written for K-K fluorescent interactions, it can be applied to K-L, L-K, and L-L interactions as previously disc~ssed."~ Similar programs have also been written to utilize the Wittry fluorescence correction, Birks combined corrections, and various other corrections.' These modified programs have proved to be quite useful for quantitative comparisons of the results of the various theories. The program for conversion of raw X-ray data to corrected composition includes corrections for drift, backround, and instrumental dead time. The corrected intensities are converted to composition by use of the Ziebold equation"2 and parameter obtained from the program system. The results can be obtained for either atom or weight fractions. In addition to accurately computing interdiffusion coefficients the Matano analysis program calculates least-square smoothed values of concentration, concentration gradient, and curvature for each point on the raw input concentration profile. In order to obtain high accuracies a unique method of performing a least-square polynomial fit to incrementally advancing profile segments which overlap is used.' This program has been successfully modified for use in ternary diffusion problems3 and can readily be modified to handle analysis of diffusion profiles which include phase boundary discontinuities. This link is generally applicable to analysis of interdiffusion data obtained by other techniques as well as by the microprobe. The primary function of the next program is to least-squares fit experimental diffusion data to the normal Arrhenius function: D = Doexp(-Q/RT), to obtain values of Do and Q. In addition the probable error and one, two, and three u statistical confidence limits of DO, Q, and log D are evaluated. This program is also directly useful for analysis of any other simple temperature-activated processes including conductivity, and certain deformation and chemical processes. The program to generate calibration curves for film-thickness determination using the microprobe is based on a numerical integration of the equation derived by Cockett and ~avis.' Values of film thickness obtained by this program for copper on various substrates are in good agreement with measurements made by other techniques. Versions of the above program system have been prepared for use with or without a remote teletype connection to the computer for processing on either a real-time or time-share basis. The instrumentation coupling a microprobe to a teletype for automatic data collection and analysis by the presently described program system has been reported elsewhere by the authors.' If teletype equipment is not used to communicate with the computer, standard methods of card reading and tape reading can be used. In either

Jan 1, 1967

By James Douglas

IN discussing the waste upon which hinges, or is supposed to hinge, so largely the preservation of our national resources, the conclusions reached would be more reliable if actual ex¬perience were consulted, and fewer deductions were drawn from general statements, which are often the product of the imagination. It cannot be questioned that the value of by-products has not been sufficiently appreciated by us, and that our, tardiness in recovering the useful ingredients of the escaping gas of our coke-ovens is one of the most glaring instances of shortcoming in that direction. And yet even for that sin there is some palliation in the immature condition of affiliated industries. I presume that it is admitted, without argument, that, except under very exceptional conditions, all the elements cannot be recovered from most of the ores or natural products. which we treat. While it is a shame that the by-products from our coke-ovens should be dissipated, Edward W. Parker's report to the U. S. Geological Survey for 1906' supplies a fairly good excuse in justification of this appalling waste. He says (pp. 773 to 774.)

May 1, 1909

By H. H. Klepfer, K. J. Gill, P. Chiotti

SOME observations relative to the U-Zn system have been made by other investigators. Chipman1 and Carter2 have reported the preparation of several U-Zn alloys and point out that these alloys are generally difficult to prepare. Chipman1 reported evidence for a high melting compound at about 90 atomic pct Zn and the possible existence of a eutec-tic between the compound and uranium. Raynor," in a theoretical discussion of the alloying properties of uranium, included zinc among the elements predicted to have little or no solubility in a, p, or y uranium. In the present investigation, thermal analyses, X-ray, metallographic, and vapor-pressure data were obtained to determine the phase boundaries. The relatively high zinc pressure over most of the alloys at temperatures of 900 °C and above proved troublesome and special techniques had to be employed in preparing suitable alloys. Materials and Preparation of Alloys The metals employed in this investigation were Ames Laboratory biscuit uranium containing less than 500 ppm total impurities and Bunker Hill slab zinc or Baker Analyzed reagent granulated zinc, both with a purity of 99.99+ pct. Due to the high vapor pressure of zinc and the high reactivity of both uranium and zinc with oxygen at only moderately high temperatures, alloys were prepared in closed containers which had either been evacuated or evacuated and filled with helium. High purity magnesia, magnesia containing 10 pct calcium fluoride, and tantalum proved to be suitable crucible materials. Tw-o different procedures, described below, were used to prepare alloys, the latter being the most satisfactory. The metals, uranium turnings and granulated zinc, were cleaned with dilute nitric acid, rinsed, dried, and placed immediately in a helium-fill'ed dry box. The two metals were placed' in a 10 mil Ta crucible. The charge was enclosed in the tantalum crucible by welding on a preformed tantalum cap. This assembly was enclosed inside a stainless steel (AISI 309) bomb. The bomb was made by welding a piece of stainless steel plate on each end of a stainless steel pipe. All these operations were carried out in a helium atmosphere. These assemblies were heated in a muffle furnace at temperatures between 1100" and 1200°C for 10 to 15 min or held as long as 15 to 20 hr in the 950" to 1000°C temperature range before quenching. Spectrographic and chemical analyses showed no tantalum pickup by the alloys, indicating no reaction between the alloys and the crucibles. However, some of these crucibles failed, probably due to imperfections in the welds of the stainless steel or tantalum crucibles. The second and most satisfactory method was to prepare the alloys by powder metallurgy techniques. The procedure was to press degreased and acid-etched uranium turnings with granulated zinc into 20 g compacts under 20,000-psi pressure. The compacts were placed in MgO crucibles, and sealed in evacuated Vycor or fused silica tubes. The alloys were then heated as long as two weeks at about 550°C in a muffle furnace. The pressed compacts were observed to expand by several volume percent during heating and it was necessary to make allowances for this expansion in order to avoid breaking the crucible and Vycor tube. This method was found very satisfactory for preparing alloys which were suitable for thermal analysis or vapor pressure studies. Experimental Methods and Results The phase diagram for the U-Zn system at 1 atrn pressure, shown in Fig. 1, is based primarily on vapor pressure measurements and on thermal analysis taken at temperatures below 950°C. Fig. 2 shows the U-Zn diagram at 5 atrn pressure, constructed on the basis of thermal analysis of alloys in sealed containers up to 1150°C and on the basis of metallographic, X-ray, and analytical data. The alloys sealed under vacuum were actually under their own vapor pressure and those sealed in an atmosphere of helium were under an additional pressure due to the helium. At temperatures up to 1100°C the zinc pressure is 5 atrn or less for these alloys; consequently the maximum pressure over the alloys sealed under a helium atmosphere was 10 atrn or less at temperatures up to 1100°C. Changes in pressure of this order of magnitude do not appreciably alter the position of most solid-solid or liquid-solid phase boundaries. In constructing the phase diagram for a pressure of 5 atm, the effect of pressure on all phase boundaries except those for liquid-vapor or solid-vapor regions was considered negligible.

Jan 1, 1958

By D. L. Douglas

The ß decomposition of Zr-U-O alloys was studied during an interrupted quench from the a + ß region. Decomposition was more rapid than in binary Zr-U alloys of the same uranium content or qf equivalent ß composition. The rapid transformation has been ascribed to the presence of the primary a phase which provided nucleation sites and which permitted preferential partitioning of oxygen to the a phase and of uranium to the COMMERCLAL heat treatments are designed to produce certain strength and toughness character- istics by controlling the microstructure of an alloy. A desired distribution of microconstituents is achieved in practice by treating an alloy under the correct time-temperature conditions. A knowledge of the phase equilibria in any alloy system is essential in outlining heat treatments, but in addi-

Jan 1, 1961

By F. Lawson, N. A. Sareyed-Dim

A rotating disk of iron precipitant in a high temperature batch reactor has been used to study the kinetics of precipitation of nickel from low concentration aqueous solutions. Under inert atmosphere conditions, for temperatures up to 150°C, the rate of nickel deposition at pH25°C of 5 to 6 is controlled both by the rate at which nickel ions reach the surface and the rate of chemical reaction at the surface. However, the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere above the reacting system increases the nickel deposition rate dramatically. It is suggested that under the experimental conditions used, hydrogen atoms are adsorbed on both the iron and nickel, thus reducing the number of sites available for the cementation reaction. Oxygen acts as a depolarizer for hydrogen.

Jan 1, 1977

By AIME AIME

BEGINNING Thursday, July 16, the National Broadcasting Co. is broadcasting from 6:30 to 6:45 p.m., over its nationwide network and possibly also by short wave a series of eleven radio programs dealing with the contributions of engineers to the prosecution of the war. The series is being arranged and sponsored by a committee of representatives of the national engineering societies, R. L. Sackett, chairman. The committee began its deliberations before Pearl Harbor and had scripts under way on blackouts, bombs, and damage to structures. The declaration of war emphasized the importance of the proposed radio program. The National Broadcasting Co. and the Office of Civilian Defense enthusiastically endorsed the committee's proposal and have been generous in their help and approval of scripts so far submitted. Controversial matters are included in the broadcasts and changes will be made when requested by O.C.D. up to the minute that a program goes on the air. In this way the latest and authoritative information will be given.

Jan 1, 1942