A research on Faraday's “steel and alloys.”

Abstract

It is surely not often that a paper such as this has been presented to the Royal Society dealing as it does with the research work carried out and described in its Proceedings by one of our Fellows more than a century ago. Still more rarely has it been possible, as in the present case, to be able to estimate the value of such research by a full examination of original specimens which have fortunately survived the long intervening period exactly as they left the hands of their maker. I have endeavoured to describe the situation as it existed at that time and to submit this in Part I of the present paper, which deals with the historical side and general considerations. In Part II is shown the actual research work, both scientific and technical, carried out in the examination of the FARADAY steel specimens at the Hadfield Research Laboratory, Sheffield, also a description of the methods adopted with regard to the large number of chemical determinations and metallographic examinations, mechanical, physical, heat treatment and other tests, and finally the general conclusions concerning the information derived from FARADAY’s “ Steel and Alloys ”—this is the term employed by FARADAY himself to designate the specimens and is therefore used by the author throughout the present paper—not only as regards the qualities of these alloys themselves, but also in furnishing valuable information useful to us to-day.