LITERATURE Microtext Journal Offered AIBS studies microtext techniques as a new w a y to p u b lish scientific journals POSSIBLY the most compact scientific journal ever to he offered to readers is Wildlife Disease, the official organ of the Wildlife Disease Association, Washington, L). C. The journal's quarterly issues now consist of about four 5 X 3inch microcurds, each card containing up to 47 pages of regularly printed material. This journal-shrinking is an experiment which will be run during the next three \ ears by the American Institute of Biological Sciences, assisted bygrants from the Council on Library Resources and the National Science Foundation. AIBS hopes the experiment will determine: • If a small specialist group, unable to afford to print a journal in the regular way, can publish one in microtext. • If a microtext journal will be acceptable to author, reader, and library in terms of scientific communication. • If the microtext technique will speed up the publication of the results of research. • If the microtext technique will cut publication costs by requiring less abridgement of data than is now done with regular scientific journals. 9 If the microtext technique will present photographic data more clearly than half-tone reproduction. • W h i c h microtext medium (microfilm, microcards, microfiche, etc.) and what methods of presentation will be most acceptable. One drawback to the microtext technique is that extra optical devices are needed. The program will test the applicability of a small, portable handviewer, which is expected to cost about $10. The Wildlife Disease journal deals with parasites, diseases, physiology, and other factors relating to the health and survival of wild animals, and with the indirect relations of these factors to domestic animals and man. The 60
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journal may be obtained for $1.00 a year, the cost also including membership in the Wildlife Disease Association and an irregularly-issued newsletter. Write to Wildlife Disease Association, 2000 P St., X.W., Washington 6, D. C .
Process Problems Practical experience in the field of industry is one phase of an engineer's training that cannot come from colleges. McGraw-Hill's '"Successful Process Plant Practices" edition of this year offers a widely diversified series of a r ticles covering actual workable applications of design and redesign to overcome plant problems. This book has been aptly classified as a "how-to" reference manual. T h e author has accumulated a series of published articles on various functions of plant operations. Several articles are presented in each of the different phases of plant work. These articles are well indexed and cataloged into normal plant functions. For instance, safety practices, scheduling, planning, communications, a n d records fall under management of jobs. Likewise, equipment handling, cleaning, dismantling, improvement, and devices fall under maintenance of equipment. The author then extends this practical approach of ideas to include all phases of work-rigging, process control, corrosion, inspection, shop fabrication, pumps, exchangers, tanks, and others. Primarily, the information leans toward continuous process operations. Most of these approaches can be applied or modified to apply to any process or any similar type of equipment or problem. The most interesting sections are devoted to the elimination of common problems in any plant. These problems are presented in many ways: improper materials of construction, inherent plugging of lines, vapor lock of liquids, and seemingly impossible rigging and cleaning methods. This book offers a way to meet these problems. True, they can be improved, but they have been tried and now work. Any refinement generally must be justified from the economics standpoint. Most
all of the solutions offered in this book can he developed with plant owned equipment, tools, and personnel. Field experience is a difficult knowledge to acquire. It requires time on the part of an engineer or foreman, accompanied by some unsuccessful and costly attempts at redesign to eliminate a problem. It also requires a practical knowledge of maintenance and operation to properly design equipment, and its related facilities, such as piping, in a manner that is beneficial to all concerned. The last two problems above are the ones well covered in this book. These can be analyzed better in this way. F'irst. it is not feasible for plants to manufacture their own equipment. Therefore, an engineer attempts to specify the conditions of his particular service to the manufacturer. Take the problem of the pump, for example. T h e engineer specifies his required parameters. The manufacturer will attempt to furnish a suitable stock p u m p to be competitive. The p u m p may be supplied with another manufacturer's seal, gear box and driver, couplings, etc. Then the fun begins. The p u m p vapor locks, the material being p u m p e d polymerizes, cavitation develops, the seal freezes, the shaft pits, the coupling seizes, the thrust bearing fails too often, or etc. From information available at the beginning, no one is at fault, but what do you do now? Some of these answers for particular fluids, applications, and p u m p s are in this book. An example best explains the second problem—considerations in installing a heat exchanger. Suggestions, based on actual plant practices, are offered along t h n following areas: tube bundle alignment, flange spreading and bolting, acidizing connections, break-out pipe spools, and process control arrangements. Maintenance suggestions in other chapters cover retubing jigs, gasket cutting, tube plugging, tube bundle handling, and others. The senior engineer may know most or all of these things, but oaly through his past experience. The problem is that we cannot all be senior engineers, and the more experience we have the better we produce. In conclusion, this book offers a knowledge of plant practices to learn and consider in design. It may have a solution to your problem. It does have practical solutions to many problems and practical guides to many designs. The book may easily substitute for two
to three years of field experience for engineers a n d foremen.
FOAM
Successful Process Plant Practices. ROBERT L. DAVIDSON, xxii + 3 0 2
pages. McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 330 West 42nd St., N e w York 36, N. Y. 195S. $10. Reviewed by Charles Jackson, Monsanto Chemical, Texas City, Tex.
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