October 1947
INDUSTRIAL
and
ENGINEERING
WALTER J. MURPHY, Editor In This Issue Appears O u r First Annual Review of Chemical Engineering Materials of Construction
Obsolescence and Materials o f Construction
0S E
arresting statement in the first Steelman report "Science and Public Policy" contains several implications that can profitably be measured against available facts. I n presenting the numerous arguments for a greater governmental emphasis in this country on scientific research and development', the following comment appears: The future is certain t o confront us with competition from other national economies of a sort we have not hitherto had to meet. Many of these will be state-directed in the interest of national policies. 1\Iany IT-ill be supported by new, highly efficient indust'rial plant and equipment-by the most modern technology. The destructiveness of the recent war makes it inevitable that much of Europe, in rebuilding its factories, nil1 soon possess an industrial plant more modern than ours of today. What may be the significance of this fact can be illustrated by the unhappy experience of England during our lifetime. Since the turn of the century, t'he British have been paying, in terms of technological obsolescence, the penalty for their early industrial leadership. Particularly in the basic industries, British facilities and technology were older and less efficient than their German counterpa Our technology is sufficiently advanced sufficiently adequate so that there is no immediate prospect that rye shall fall technologically behind. R e shall in the future, horrever, have to rely Inrgely upon our own efforts in the basic sciences t o provide the basis for that improvement. The danger lies in t'he future.
Without elaborating on the element of inconsistency in the stat'enient quoted, xve should carefully consider one serious issue that is raised in the quotation: Is there any serious likelihood that the sparing of our industrial plant in the past war will boomerang to cripple our economy in competit'ion when Europe is rebuilt? Are we doomed t w n t y years hence to pay for our present pre-eminence in teclinology because of the very fact' of oiir present high stmateof clcvelopmcnt? We cloubtl it,. 0111- tloiiht becomes nlniost a certainty if t h e qiicry is n m w i v c d t1on.n to t h c ct1emic:tl pro inclust'rics. .lltjtioiigli :in iiifoi-niecl :uialysis of the British sit'iiation indicnt,cs that siicli n fate is by no nicms inipossil~lr,it simply coiiltl not, liapprm in this country n-ithout a re1-olutionary change in the manage-
ment policies of the leaders in the American chemical process industries. There is no evidence that such a change is likely t o materialize. Those Aimericnnindustries that have prospered have rather consistently given the element of obsolescence a substantial rating, both on their balance sheets, and in their attitude toward replacing old plants by more efficient ones. The entire capital investment in some n a r plants, Tvhose peacetime value happened to be questionable at best, was depreciated in three years or less. In normal times major operating units in an establiqhed chemical process plant may have an accounting life as lo~vas five years or so, representing drpreriation rate5 that frequent!\. precipitate an argument n i t h thr tax collector. These practices are the financial expression of our industrial executives' belief in technological progress. They are the dollars-and-cents assertion that a company must be prepared to move with the tide of neu knonledge if it k n o w what is good for it. There is not much likelihood that Xmerican production facilities nil1 ever be badly out of date, so long as the present technological competition continues. It is true that in many countries thc ciistom is: to operate a plant until the 11 heels can no longer be made to turn. We do not think, honerer. that the chemical process industries in such countries subscribe to this philosophy to the degree practiced by others, simply because there are tn-o kinds of competition in the industry-price and product-and the latter is frequently the more important. New opportunities have been too attractive to permit even the most backward management to remain entirely static. Roger Altlanis cornmcntetl on Japanese incluitrial practice I\ ith rrsprct to o l ) ~ o I r y r ( w only e a few weeks ago 1)efoi~.:Lliinc~hron:tritlicnw of t h c A.C.S. Division of Tntliibl i 4 t I :tnd l5ngincw inp, ( 'Iicrnitt I-\.. Some ,Japiiiicw i i i - t d l : t l ion-, i i n t l ~ i 3cwndrixt ion :is I Y ~ ~ L I K L tion> plant\, proi et1 t o Iw in +rich poor icpiir and to contain siic~h old :tiid o l ) \ o l ( ~ t coquipmc~nt ~ t h n t they T\ erc 1 ) a r ~ l yo p c w l ~ l cin tlic,ir in% location. Once dismantled and -hipped t"l+n l m e , the odds were 1191
1192
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
heavily against the likelihood of their ever being put into service. On the European continent there are numerous examples that reveal a backward policy of continuing the operation of an obsolete installation merely because the equipment is still in 11-orkable mechanical order. I n Germany, although the chemical industry \vas highly cartelized, a more progressive policy Tvas folloJved; large Italian companies, such as the Montecatini establishment, also had plant replacement programs in effect that were not too far different from our o m . In both instances the chemical industries of these countries n-ere especially interested in foreign markets and realized that attention t o advancing technology was essential for survival. Hon-ever, n here monopoly or near-monopoly exists. there is a tendency in many instances to complacency in technological matters. I t must be pointed out that a chicken-and-egg relation exists betn-een the groivth of industrial activity in a nation and the technological advancement in its industries. T h o can say hoiv much of the progress in keeping United States plants technologically up to date has been achieved so far through the painless method of new plant construction for expanding markets? The extent of such opportunities may be measured in a general 11-ay by the 16 billion dollars Ivhich, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reports, our chemical process industries are spending this year in plant expansion and construction. The September 2-1- isiue of T h e Guaranty Survey, a monthly publication of the Guaranty Trust Company of S e w York, states that capital expenditures in the oil industry in the next t\vo years are expected to equal nearly one fourth the present total investment in facilities. S o statistics are available o,n the off setting retirement of old plants, but no one will deny that the erection of new plants stimulates the general trend t o m r d modernization. With expenditures of this magnitude characteristic of the postivar American picture, it is reasonable to question n hether we n-ill drop measurably behind rebuilt E~irope in the technological status of our chemical industry. This is an ideal time, hen-ever, for the industries abroad to reorganize their policies so that the lengthening shadow of obsolescence does not blanket again tn-enty years hence the neir- plants now under construction or on the dran-ing boards. Shifting from management policy to technical considerations, there is also one significant trend in the never industrial processes that bears directly on the question of depreciation. This is the increase in operations involving high temperatures, high preswres, or extremely corrosive conditions that make unavoidablc the periodic replacement of processing units. Thehe processes have proved them~elve.; on the ultimntc te3ting ground of industrid twoiomicq. Only a moderate amount of enterprise is required of the executive in keeping abreast of nen- advances lvhcre
Vol. 39, No. 10
these processes are inrolred, for he must replace much of his plant periodically in any event, and the research and design effort involved in modernizing the replacement is relatively modest, Intimately tied u p in the economics of processes that involvc such highly destructive conditions is the selection of materials of construction whose price and physical durability combine to give the economic optimum for a specific application. The proper balance of those factors in plant design and process development is one of the key steps to engineering success. As might have been expected, a concurrent development with industrial processes that are inherently destructive of materials has been an intensive development of improved materials of construction. In the past ten years many new compositions have appeared on the market that are superior economically or physically to the conventional materials of chemical plant construction. In some instances these new materials made a pieviouJy infeasible process practicable. The chemical engineer \rho deals Jvith chemical processes in engineering scale equipment nil1 find it increasingly imperative to keep informed of the characteristics and successful applications of new materials of construction. IKDL-STRI LL A U D ESGIXEERISG CHEAIISTRY considers this need so great that it is inaugurating in this issue an annual review of chemical engineering materials of construction. In plan the revien- closely parallels the annual review of Unit operations; the various sections are n-ritten by experts and consist essentially of an interpretative review of the literature on the subject, along with a bibliography of the source articles. Like the initial Unit Operations review, this first Xaterials of Construction revien- starts its coverage approximately nith the start of World War 11, and in successive years will provide cumulative additions constituting a continuous record on the various subjects. The volume of information poured out monthly in the world‘s technical literature and the disappearance of the boiindariei between different fields of science have non- become so great that a transition phase has been reached in the assimilation of scientific knon-ledge. The time ha, arrived when it is necessary to provide periodic revie\\.; of the scientific literature as an essential supplrment t o the publication of original research. Because these reviews provide a concentrated digest of a relatively large field, they should attract general attention, even from workers whose primary effort, are not in that field but who realize that developnientb may be adaptable to their own work. In this \ray c m 1 ) prczervcd ~ the cr0s.j fertilization of information m t l toc1miqiie.j from tlw different discipline., of kno\vlctlgc that can be credited with tod;$h
tri~lini(~;tl triiiinph\. l‘tii~ iy :L c.li;illtmgo woifliy of o i ~ rhest talents; thc
ren-ard is the continued mapping of science’s endless frontier as a complete entity.
