ACTION ON THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL FRONT
Pyrex i s used t o ensure railway signal lantern against failure in rain and snow.
Development of Pyrex Glassware Based on information furnished by Corning Glass Works, Corning, Ν . Υ. τ
Ι ΛΗΕ glasses now known, under the trade mark "Pyrex" had their origin i n an effort to> make impossible the failure of the glass globe in a lighted railroad signal lan tern exposed to rain or snow. The glass first developed had low tnermal expansion and was entirely satisfactory for the pur pose. Its freak composition, however, resulted in slow but complete solubility in water and its field of application was there fore limited. Only after the traditional seven years of constant research in Corning Glass Works laboratories 'was a glass highly resistant both to chemical attack and to thermal shock ready for the market. 312
Even then years of unprofitable manufac ture followed, caused by difficulties inci dent to the h?gh temperatures required for melting and working the new material. Evidence is plentiful that the chief bene ficiary of such a development is the aver age citizen of the United States. The majority of American housewives today are using clean, transparent Pyrex ware in oven and on top of stove, for coffee brewing and for baby nursing. On the basis of the National Bureau of Standards reports on its superiority the laboratory man long ago substituted it for imported glassware. Hundreds of miles of Pyrex CHEMICAL
pipe fine are giving service with quantities of other Pyrex equipment in chemical manufacturing plants. New and sometimes unique uses have gradually been found. Glass springs actuated many million times without dam age, all-glass rotaiy pumps, insulators contributing to transcontinental telephone communication, airway beacons, corro sion-resistant steam boiler gage glasses are among the applications. A lamp with ultraviolet-transmitting envelope has brought about dramatic reduction of in fection in hospital operating rooms and has demonstrated that epidemics of chilAND
ENGINEERING
NEWS
Water flows through this Pyrex piping to insulate a high voltage transmitter at the radio station W L W in Cincinnati. Pyrex ware replaces strategic materials in household utensils. Top, This double boiler is made almost wholly of Pyrex glass. Center. Frying pan is of glass "Flameware" for use directly ovei a low-heating element. Bottom, Pyrex ovenware is shown in the making. Molten glass drops into mold and is shaped by plunger.
Glass piping is being used in large quantities along with other Pyrex equipment in chemical manufacturing plants.
dren's diseases can be checked by irradiation of schoolrooms. These glasses are used in confidential, high-priority defense work; in frying pans» saucepans, and double boilers they are recognized materials for replacement of strategic metals. The 200-inch mirror for the California Institute of Technology telescope was cast from such a glass. Development of automatic manufacture by means of patented machines and processes has made it possible to lower prices substantially. Certain popular ovenware types are selling at one fourth to one third of earlier prices; in laboratory ware 40 and 64 per cent are typical price reductions on large-volume items in the past 10 years. In comparison with such savings to the public any profit to stockholders is trifling. This development is a commonplace example of the stimulus of the United States patent system working for the general benefit. It had its roots in three principal factors: (1) forward-looking policy on the part of a company having (2) profits adequate not only for a return on capital but something besides which could be gambled on uncertain future results of a research program, and (3) protection for a period of years from imitators. V O L U M E
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