From the Editor
- PDF / 191,569 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 31 Downloads / 184 Views
in New Jersey at the start of WW2 out of concerns to find replacement alloying elements for Cr in Ni-hard irons by the additions of various carbide stabilizers. As
a scientific serendipitist which I define as ‘‘one who finds technically valuable or beneficial things not sought for.’’ based upon a keynote lecture and paper, ‘‘The Estimable Value of ‘Clever Experiments,’’’ presented by Prof. John Berry, Mississippi State University at The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society 4th International Shaped Casting Symposium held in his honor. While the points raised in that lecture were further explored by Prof. Berry, David Weiss and others, what was not discussed is the role of what can be considered unintended outcomes—serendipity—in discovering and advancing new technology. Since this issue contains a section focused on invited papers coming from the 6th Keith Millis Symposium, I felt it was appropriate to briefly look at some technological developments, especially related to ductile iron, that were a result of such circumstances. The first example is the basis for invention of ductile iron almost 80 years ago in 1942. This didn’t start out as an effort to develop treatment techniques to produce a cast iron with graphite in the form of spheroids, but rather it was research conducted at the INCO (International Nickel
Keith Millis, one of the young investigators and co-founders recounted, after a less than exhaustive literature review of elements that could form carbides with C, they decided on series of heats that included additions of Cr, Zr, Bi, Ce, Cu, Pb, Te, Mg and Cb. Ignoring the advice of his co-researcher, Gegnebin, and warnings about incompatibility of Mg in molten iron, the test heat was made with the Mg addition which resulted in significant violent flaring. Thinking this approach of Mg addition was useless, Millis had the metal poured off and tagged with the notation in his 13 February 1942 lab book that the sample was ‘‘…tough to break, surface rather crappy.’’ The tagged sample was not sectioned at that time but was catalogued and stored. While the depth of chill was noted as was the ability for Mg to effectively reduce the S content, it was not until January 1946 when Millis, out of curiosity, got that chill block out of storage, polished it and discovered the graphite in the top half was spheroidal. This and other work conducted
International Journal of Metalcasting/Volume 14, Issue 4, 2020
by INCO at Jamestown Foundry resulted in the INCO patents and the dramatic announcement by T. H. Wickenden (INCO) of their developments of a Mg treatment for production of an as-cast spheroidal graphite iron at the end of H. Morrogh’s (BCIRA) 1942 AFA Casting Congress presentation ‘‘Production of Nodular Graphitic Structure in Gray Cast Irons’’ concerning the use of cerium to create graphite nodules. Except for that fortunate turn of events when Keith Millis first added magnesium to a bath of molten iron back in 1942, and the subsequent curiosity he displayed, who could have predicted that the incredible reaction th
Data Loading...
