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Show I New Steels Due to j Molecule Studies Philadelphia. American industry is entering a new era in the manufacture manu-facture and use of "tailor-made" steels adapted to a wide variety of purposes and made possible by scientists sci-entists studying iron molecule by molecule, the Franklin institute here was told by Dr. John Johnston, director of research for the United States Steel corporation. Control of the heating and cooling of iron and steel during its manufacture manu-facture so as to change the point at ' which iron cnanges from its "al pha" form to its "gamma" phase is making possible new types of material ma-terial that can be fitted to new needs, he asserted. "A generation ago," he stated, "the technical problems facing the steel industry were related mainly to increased production of a few kinds of steel, but today the object is to improve the fitness of steel at no greater over-all cost to the public." pub-lic." Iron is now known to exist in two forms, the alpha and gamma types, he explained. These two types, which differ in physical properties sufficiently to enable engineers to adapt them to practical use, owe their existence to different arrangements arrange-ments of iron atoms in the iron molecule. mol-ecule. And the change from one type to the other can be controlled by the processing which the iron receives. re-ceives. The emphasis on the iron and steel business today is on producing corrosion - proof metals, he said. Stainless steel, most prominent member of the corrosion-resistant family, is valuable, among other things, because it does not rust and thin sheets can be used without the fear that they will be damaged by long exposure. |