THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK
Western Industry to Continue Growth, Despite Uncertainties C&EN REPORTS: Western Metal Exposition and Congress O A K L A N D , C A L I F . - T h e outlook is for continued rapid industrialization of the western area even w h e n w e look beyond current and temporary problems of mobilization, material shortages, and governmental controls, James Mussatti, California State Chamber of Commerce, told a joint session of California manufacturers and technical men at the Western Metal Congress which met here March 1 9 to 23. Referring to the 469£ increase in population in the seven western states in the past d e c a d e a n d 104 #? increase in factory employment in the same area, Mussatti belittled the opinion that western industrial growth is not keeping u p with its population growth, but claimed instead that manufacturing facilities are followi n g d i e population and market expansion a t a rate as rapid as can b e expected. Area L e a d s i n Raw Metals Commenting on the fact that the seven western states have long been heavy prod u c e r s of raw metals from ore, d i e speaker reported that they currendy account for 8/0% of the nation's copper, 4795: of die lead, 3895; of die zinc, and 719c of d i e silver. T h e Northwest, more recendy, has b e c o m e a primary producer of aluminum, utilizing electric power of that area somewhat to the exclusion of extensive development of other industries. T h e power generating capacity* of these states will be d o u b l e d by t h e end of diis year as compared to 1940 and will represent 179£ o f d i e nation's total. At die beginning of die current year, basic steel making h a d jumped to 4.5 million net ingot tons from less uian 1 million tons 10 years ago. Further expansions are under w a y by major comp a n i e s w h i c h will substantially increase both ingot capacity and facilities for finished steel products, including cold rolled s h e e t s , tin plate, and various steel bars and shapes. A gain of 1429fc in employm e n t in western primary metal industries c o m b i n e d w i t h fabricated metal products w a s reported and compared with only a. 619fc increase for die nation. The speaker also reported favorable statistics for nonelectrical machinery, electrical machinery a n d equipment, transportation equipment, and motor vehicle assembly industries, all of which, he stated, point t o w a r d increased production in western factories. P a n e l Discussion O n e highlight of the program presented b y t h e American Society for Metals was a panel discussion on conservation, utilization, and substitution for strategic and
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scarce materials. Presided over b y Ernest E. Thum, editor of Metal Progress, the panel consisted of James B. Austin, U . S. Steel Corp.; Elmer Gammeter, Globe Steel Tubes Co.; John Chipman, MIT; Thomas G. Digges, National Bureau of Standards; Walter E. Jominy, Chrysler Corp.; and Fred J. Robbins, Sierra Drawn Steel Corp.
to the current emergency lasting for a long period, the alloy situation will be more severe than in W o r l d War II. Increased use of boron steels w a s predicted, and use of titanium, zirconium, and other alloying elements as substitutes for those critically short was discussed. Nondestructive Testing The railroads are now using ultrasonic and gamma r a y . testing equipment in searching for internal defects, and magnetic particle and fluorescent penetrant methods to detect surface flaws, Arthur S. Pedrick, Southern Pacific Co., reported in a program planned b y the Society for
Largest single exhibit w a s this 100-ton hydraulic press here b e i n g moved into t h e exposition building. T h e machine, which stamps, presses and punches metal, was manufactured by Pacific Industrial Mfg. C o . and is used extensively in the manufacture of airplane a n d auto parts T h e chairman opened the discussion byy e stating that the best cure for any shortage is the production of a greater amount of>f n the material or product that is scarce. In the case of steel, the panel agreed that inicreased steel production would depend o n increased importation of foreign ores, use e of low grade domestic ores, and intensiified production from present plants. It [t w a s reported that Venezuelan ore w o u l d be used in the n e w U. S. Steel Corp. plant lt in Delaware. One speaker estimated diat it within five years considerable tonnages of >f steel will b e produced from low grade e Minnesota ores, and that the extra cost of >f concentration might easily be made upp through improved blast furnace operation. l. Opinions differed on just what can b e excpected of pressurized blast furnace operaition. Some endiusiastic reports have been n made, but o n e speaker pointed out that, t, based on d i e radier extensive experience of >f d i e Germans, diere appears to be litde to expect from oxygen enrichment in a blast st furnace already being properly operated. I. it All agreed that, since indications point
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Non-Destructive Testing. H e stated that a railroad machinist could be trained in a very short time to use reflectoscopes with a range of 0.5 to 5 megacycles satisfactorily, and that the equipment was readily applied to locomotive driving axles. Crankpins and parts w i d i irregular contours are more difficiilt to test due to the complicated reflected w a v e forms which occur. Radiographic T e s t s Southern Pacific is using a 200 milligram capsule of radium salts for radiographic tests and forms have been submitted to AEC for procurement of radioactive cobalt 60. T h i s test, Pedrick said, is useful in connection with foundry work and for checking purchased castings for internal flaws. Three types of magnetic fields are used in magnetic particle inspection. In the railroad's three major shops, a total of 35,697 axles were inspected in 1950, resulting in the scrapping of 1966, or 5.5%. The fluorescent penetrant method for detecting surface flaws is used for inspection of die nonferrous
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THE CHEMICAL WORLD THIS WEEK parts from diesel locomotives and axle roll bearing retainers. This method was said to be particularly effective for diesel valves, since they are made of a special heat resistant alloy, high in chromium and nickel, and will not satisfactorily take a magnetic test. Of 10,987 valves inspected by this method in one shop last year, 1.11% were found to be defective. Special applications of the four methods for testing in the aircraft industry were described by W . C. Ilitt, Douglas Aircraft Corp. Ultrasonic Detection of Flaws The first ultrasonic equipment for the automatic detection of flaws in metals is
being designed by Electrocircuits Co., D . C. Erdman reported. The machine will be used for checking jet engine turbine parts and will offer many advantages over manual ultrasonic equipment now in use by t! industry. A large number of exhibits were presented by metal fabricators, and manufacturers of welding, testing, and other equipment. The entire congress and exposition was planned with the cooperation of 20 technical societies, with technical sessions being directly sponsored by the American Society for Metals, American Welding Society, Society for Non-Destructive Testing, and American Foundrymen's Society.
The Cover.
Problem-Solver Katharine Blodgett Wins Garvan M e d a l "^fov have to like problems." •*- "Solving problems is a habit." So says Katharine Blodgett, w h o will receive the 1951 Women's Award in Chemistry (Garvan Medal) at the ACS Meeting in Cleveland this week. When you see "Katie" Blodgett bustling about her laboratory at the General Electric research laboratories tossing good-natured but imperious instructions over her shoulder, you involuntarily expect her to pull a crackling turkey from an oven or throw a couple of sticks of wood into a cookstove. On the other hand if you meet her in her 100-year-old kitchen carefully experimenting with ingredients for popovers you know immediately that here is a scientist at work. Wherever you find her you can be sure she is enjoying herself. The secret is of course that like any good N e w Englander she enjoys a challenge. She likes problems and has made solving them a habit. Her first problem was basic. She was a woman. In 1918 when Katharine B. Blodgett received an M.S. from the University of Chicago backed up by a B.S. from Bryn Mawr, a woman scientist was not considered so much a rarity as an impossibility. However, with an assist from a 'wartime labor shortage and friends of her late father, the former head of GE's patent department, she became the first woman in the GE research laboratories. Chance cast her as assistant to Irving Langmuir, w h o was then beginning his studies of monomolecular films. Katie grabbed onto the problem and is still hanging on. Dr. Langmuir has described her as "a gifted experimenter w h o works in simple and direct ways . . . working out
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her own experimental methods." Dr. Blodgett, self-described chemist by adoption, is a physicist by training; an experimenter by inclination. It is her extremely effective common-sense approach to experimental work that has made her such an effective coworker to Dr. Langmuir, himself an experimental scientist working under the administration of W. R. Whitney, a prominent proponent of the experimental school of research. In her turn Dr. Blodgett was responsible for the introduction into Dr. Langmuir's group of Vincent Schaefer, t h e brilliant experimentalist w h o perfected the technique of inducing precipitation artificially. As early as 1924 Katie's work attracted favorable attention. In that year she was granted permission to study under Sir Ernest Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge. After two years of continuous chill in the old quadrangle buildings she returned to the United States with the first doctorate in physics ever awarded to a woman by that august institution. Since that time Dr. Blodgett has acquired decorative doctorates from Elmira College, Western College, Brown University, and Russell Sage College. The first practical fruits of Dr. Blodgett's intensive studies of thin films came in 1938 when GE introduced "invisible" glass based on the Blodgett technique for depositing successive monomolecular layers on glass by picking them u p from the surface of a water bath. The development made Dr. Blodgett one of the best known women scientists in the country. During the succeeding period of radio interviews and women's magazine features she pro-
CHEMICAL
I Ml ISTRV Another Move M a d e i n Monsanto's $22 Million Program Monsanto Chemical Co. is negotiating for the purchase of a 115-acre site and several buildings in Addyston, Ohio, as a midwestern center for production and distribution of plastics. T h e new plant will b e operated as part of the company's plastics division under the direction of F . A. Abbiati, division general manager. The division's headquarters plant is in Springfield, Mass.
ceeded to perfect a thickness-comparison gage composed of stepwise deposits of one microinch films o n a folaclc glass base. The various interference colors produced by the different film thicknesses can b e compared with those produced by an unknown film and the thickness determined within one microinch. With that problem under control and the gages in production sHe has currently turned to the development of a material of very high electrical resistance composed of lead glass lieated in an atmosphere of hydrogen. Such treatment produces a thin surface film which has a low conductivity that is stable at very high voltage gradients. All of this important work has been done at an old battered desk o r perched on a scarred wooden stool. T m e to her Maine ancestry Katie has a n aflection for old familiar furnishings and Has determinedly had her furniture and equipment moved from laboratory to laboratory. In the steel and glass surroundings of the new GE building they seem somewhat out of place until complimented by the comfortable face and well-modulated voice of their owner by adoption. When she leaves the desk Katie carries her struggle with nature to a newarena adjacent to her home. There, o n a small plot, which one of her friends says contains more fertilizer per square foot than any other ground in t h e world, the conducts an "experimental"' garden. Many of her experiments are unsuccessful but at least she k n o w s why the zinnias don't bloom or the carrots are scrubby. Summer weelc-ends s h e deserts both the lab and the garden for a "camp" on Lake George w h i c h consists of a one room cabin and an a d jacent sleeping tent. There the creed is open house as long as the guests stay out from underfoot when Katie i s cooking. On the trip u p and b a c k Katie does her own driving. She is much, happier with her o w n hands on t h e wheel.
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