I/EC
N e w Books
Principles and Practice of Flow Meter Engineering L.
K.
SPINK.
8th
ed.
χ
+
549
pages. The Foxboro Co., Foxboro, Mass. 1958. $15.00. Reviewed by MURRAY WEINTRAUB, U. S. Bureau
of Mines, Pittsburgh, Pa.
i j e v e n prior editions indicate the extent to which "Principles and Practice of Flow Meter Engineer ing" has been accepted as a hand book by the engineers responsible for metering the billions of cubic feet of process fluids, steam, and natural gas that flow through the pipelines of our heavy industry. The engi neer who has to estimate flow through an orifice or other differential head metering device only occasionally should also find this latest volume of great value, for it answers his prob lem of assembling the numerous coefficients and correction factors usually required for an accurate flow estimate by collecting all the work ing formulas in one appendix and thoroughly cross-referencing them to the text for easy access to the ad ditional factors, graphs, and tables required. Important construction details and possible pitfalls are clearly described, so that even a novice can design an accurate metering unit. This edition incorporates a con siderable amount of experimental data and newly promulgated stand ards that have not appeared in pre vious editions. Included are data on quadrant edge orifices, coefficients for Dall flow tubes, and the 1955 recommendations of the AGA Gas Measurement Committee. Several radical changes from earlier editions have been made to bring symbols into conformity with AGA, ASME, and ASA terminology. The primary value of this book will be as a ready reference handbook for the designer and user of differen 104 A
tial-head flowmeters. The exten sive and well-indexed tables and clearly printed charts serve this pur pose admirably. Sections on histori cal facts, theory, indicating and con trolling devices, and primary ele ments other than variable-head de vices appeal to the student and engi neer whose interests are not exclu sively in the field of medium- and high-volume metering, but the super ficial treatment of these topics, espe cially that of other primary devices, prevents the book from being a wellrounded general text on fluid meter ing. It is hoped that future edi tions will expand the treatment of these subjects into as clear a format as the author has developed for the variable-head class of instruments. The book is organized into five major divisions. Part I comprises chapters on history and recent de velopments, physical details, and chief characteristics of orifices, noz zles, and other differential produc ing primary devices; "Theory," chiefly a discussion of the basic hy draulic equation for the orifice and modifications of the equation; and "Meter Mechanisms," which in cludes discussion of secondary de vices and primary devices other than those producing a variable head as output. The essence of the book lies in the next three parts: "Liquid Flow Measurement," "Steam Flow Meas urement," and "Gas Flow Measure ment." Each has chapters on spe cific problems of meter installation, sizing of the primary and secondary elements, considerations of the im portant physical properties of the fluid under measurement, tables and curves of meter coefficients, and de tailed examples worked out in com mon, rather than in dimensionally consistent units. Part II, "Liquids," includes data on measurements in open channels. Part I I I , "Steam," includes a de
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
scription of the use of throttling ori fices at critical pressure drop. Part IV, " G a s , " includes a discussion of the legal aspects of natural gas meas-' urement and gives a clear exposition of the details necessary to ensure unambiguous satisfaction of con tracts. Part V is the appendix.
The Solid State for Engineers J. SINNOTT. xi + 522 pages. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 440 Fourth Ave., New York 16, Ν. Υ. 1958. $12.50. Reviewed by R. J. KOKES, Department of Chemistry, Johns Hop kins University, Baltimore 18, Md. MAURICE
Xhe author's avowed purpose in writing this book was to provide a textbook for engineers which would bridge the gap between the empirical type of texts on engineering materials and the fundamental ones on solid state physics. For the past 10 years, the author has taught a course, in cluding such material, to chemical and metallurgical engineers. He advocates a similar course for all types of engineers and hopes that this volume will suffice as a text; how ever, such a proposal is fearfully com plicated by the diversity of back grounds of the various types of en gineers. The author takes this diffi culty into account by devoting about half of the text to the fundamentals of physical chemistry and the latter half to the principles of solid state physics. Within the available space, many topics can be touched only briefly but this difficulty is further aggravated by the fact that the author is not clear on many points and misleading on others. Even if such passages oc curred only in the review portions of the book, they would detract from its value as a text. However, as this text represents a first exposure to the material for many engineers, this de ι fect is inexcusable.
The part of the book on physical chemistry (or chemical physics) suf fers from both organization and pres entation. The introductory chapter on the structure of matter (dealing with atoms and nuclei) is so con densed that it would only be useful to those already familiar with the topics. In this section, several chapters deal with structure and the use of x-rays and electron diffraction in determin ing structure, but no derivation is given by Bragg's law although Ein stein's equation relating mass and en ergy is partially derived in the first chapter. Some 25 pages are devoted to equilibrium, where the author re stricts his comments to the phase rule and solutions with no mention of equilibrium constants. T h e subse quent chapter on rate processes suf fers greatly from this and the fact that the author demotes Arrhenius' equation to a semiempirical status. The chapters on structure are somewhat mere acceptable, but a somewhat more satisfactory approach could have been employed. Any at tempt to catalog the objectional state ments made in this portion of the text would require too much space. The conclusions drawn from some of these are: mesons decay completely into energy; when artificial elements are used as a source of x-rays, better con trol is obtained when produced in tubes (?) ; in the production of x-rays, Is electrons are removed from matter. In addition to such ob vious wrong statements, this portion of the book is dotted with ambigui ties—e.g., " I n the crystalline solid state, a pair of atoms cannot be treated as a molecule, the third di mension must be considered, and this is done through the concept of coor dination." The second portion of this book, whicli deals with solid state physics proper, is, on the whole, better than the first. The author was somewhat more careful in his language and the presentation is a little better. I t is quite likely, however, that many en gineers will find the level here a little high. Here again he has some ques tionable statements—e.g., he com ments that the heat capacities of mo lecular crystals are low compared to metallic and ionic crystals. While this volume contains much material of interest, not only to en gineers but to chemists and physicists, other texts are better sources for the fundamentals presented herein.
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Ε. ST, L O U I S . I L L .
EMERYVILLE, CAL.
VOL. 5 1 , N O . 1
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JANUARY 1959
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