Birmingham Metallurgical Society Lectures and Papers

Birmingham Metallurgical Society Lectures and Papers

Birmingham Metallurgical Society Lectures and Papers Copper strip at IMI Volume I Metals and Alloys Editor: I.L. Dillamore Birmingham Metallurgical Society An Anthology of Papers reflecting the evolution of the subject of Metallurgy and the rise and fall of the associated industries in Birmingham. Represented by papers presented to the Society by National and International Experts and by major contributions made by Members of the Society. Volume I The Metals and Alloys Introduction The Birmingham Metallurgical Society was already seventeen years old when it was registered at Companies House. In those years the understanding of the behaviour of metals had advanced significantly, but still had a long way to go. The aim of the collection assembled in this and two following volumes is to show through the activities of the Society and its members how the subject of metallurgy evolved and how those companies that created the Midlands metal industry wax and waned. The Society was much involved in 1908 in the creation of a national organisation, The Institute of Metals, to serve the interests of the non-ferrous industries. The Institute's first office was in the University. In 1945 it was on an initiative of its members that a body was formed to give professional recognition to qualified metallurgists: the Institution of Metallurgists, which represented all metallurgists, both ferrous and non-ferrous. Many of the lectures in the first 50 years are shown as being before the 'Coordinated Societies'. These were the Birmingham Metallurgical Society, The South Staffordshire iron and Steel Institute and the local section of the Institute of Metals. Why there was a need for a local section, rather than have an affiliation between the Birmingham Society and the national body, as is the case more recently, is not clear; perhaps it was because the Society did not see itself as being exclusively concerned with non-ferrous metals. The amalgamation of the Iron and Steel Institute with the Institute of Metals and the Institution of Metallurgists eliminated any asymmetry. In order to give some insight into how the ideas and practices developed, in each volume the papers are presented in chronological order. There is, in the nature of generating the programmes of a scientific society, no coherence, but the same subject cropping up from time to time does give some measure of when and to what extent progress occurred. Such is the case in the papers from 1886, 1926 and 1959 on cast -iron. The one exception to the chronological order is that the first of the listed contents was from a book published in 1890: the second from the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1886. The authors of these were the two most important men in the Society's History. Arthur Hiorns was the first teacher of Metallurgy in the Midlands. It was the men who came from industry to his evening lectures at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, later becoming the Birmingham Central Technical College, that created the demand for the Society. The lectures started in 1881 and the six books that Hiorns published undoubtedly represented their content. it was essentially practical in nature, The chapter chosen to start this collection is from his 'Mixed Metals or Metallic Alloys' book from 1890. The chapter deals with German Silver. it is chosen here for two reasons. The alloy known by this name is, more than any other a product of Birmingham technology. It grew out of the better-known brass industry, being essentially brass with nickel added. It also provides a link to the state of the subject and how little understanding had change since Agricola wrote 'de Re Metallica' in 1550, even though almost all of the elements and many of the chemicals used were available by this time. The German, or nickel - silver stood essentially on the merits that Agricola reported on silver alloys: the quality of its colour. The books written by Hiorns are all about how to, they are all short on the explanation of phenomena. They are recipe books and, as is usually the case for books written by chefs, Hiorns had tried out most of the recipes, with the help of his many students. Thomas Turner, the author of the second paper, was the first Professor of Metallurgy in the University of Birmingham. The paper reproduced here is considered to be the first to give an understanding of why cast-iron from some sources turned out to be grey and others white. he took samples from the various ore bodies around the country and used the relatively new techniques of chemical analysis - J.E. Stead in the other great centre of the iron industry in the North East was an earlier user of chemical analysis to solve metallurgical problems - to identify that the silicon content was the main discriminant. This was science used to solve a significant practical problem. it set the tone for the development of metallurgy at Birmingham University. While Hiorn's reputation stayed in Birmingham, Turner became more widely known. When he retired in 1926, the party for the occasion was chaired by Neville chamberlain, who was a former pupil. Turner reminisced about another leading politician, Stanley Baldwin, being sent to study under him. (Baldwin was of the family associated with the South Wales steel-maker, Richard Thomas and Baldwin). Although the Journal of the Society was published from 1903 its early volumes contained only a short paragraph for each presentation. The first lengthier reports appeared after 1910. Even then the quality of the editing was very variable; some editors tried to report the discussion of the papers but the quality was inconsistent. The Journal of the Institute of Metals, first published in 1909 was fortunate in appointing G. Shaw Scott, one of Thomas Turner's students, as its first Secretary. The Journals are excellent productions. The Institute was formed in Birmingham, where its first meeting was held, and the stalwarts of the Birmingham Society feature large in the early contributions to the Journal. To compensate for the lack of useable items for the Societies journals, the next three papers are taken from early Institute of Metals journals. All feature people associated with the Society and also relate to the City's history. The first is about brass, for it was the capturing of the brass industry from Bristol, since the toy makers had become the principle market for the metal that created the Birmingham metals industry. It was from this that other opportunities emerged. The paper by Bengough and Hudson is of interest in showing the state of understanding of the annealing behaviour in common alloys. The familiar softening curve featured, but the explanation of the softening was in terms of Beilby's theory that the metal becomes amorphous when heavily deformed. This presumes that new crystals can form spontaneously at low temperatures; an idea that did not disappear from the literature until the 1960s. The alloys studied were 70/30 brass and Muntz-metal - essentially 60/40 bass. Muntz-metal was much celebrated in Birmingham. It made a lot of money for George Muntz, who was not the first to make it, but he persuaded the Admiralty to use it to clad its ships instead of the more expensive 70/30 brass. Bengough had been lecturer in Turner's department before moving to a lectureship in Chemistry and Metallurgy at Liverpool. He went on to be a distinguished figure in the profession, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1938. Hudson was a lecturer in Turner's department until moving to the British Non-Ferrous Metals research Association (BNFMRA) when it was founded in 1920. This did not require a physical move. The BNFMRA was based at the University until it moved to London in 1930. The next paper concerns one of the alloy systems that came from the familiarity with copper and brass. The first to patent the use of phosphorus in copper and brass was the most famous Brummie inventor, Alexander Parkes. He noted the marked strengthening and hardening effect of a phosphorus addition and suggested that it was suitable for making callico printing rollers. It subsequently found use in bearings and became important in the explosives industry, which was a Birmingham speciality, because of it spark-free characteristic. The paper by Hudson is included to show the excellence of his metallography. He studied a number of different copper phosphorous alloys identifying several Cu-P and Cu-Sn inter-metallics, making the, for 1910, interesting observation that he had to use colour photography to distinguish between some of them. Phosphor bronze is another of the many copper related alloys that came out of Birmingham. The third paper taken from the Institute of Metals Journal is an early illustration of the fate of many metallurgists, which is to help engineers understand what went wrong with their designs. T. Vaughan Hughes was probably a consulting engineer, his address is given as 130 Colmore Row. The problem he was asked to solve was important to an engineering application that was in its heyday, railway locomotion. Apparently brass boiler tubes started to burst, causing interruption to the traffic. Although Hughes does not quite say so, it appears that the water in the boiler had initially been from artesian wells, which would be mildly alkaline but was replaced, after the Elan Valley surface water supply came available in the first decade of the 20th century. This had a mildly acidic quality. Hughes was presenting his paper in London but does not specifically mention this milestone in the development of the City of Birmingham.

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