X-RAYS IN INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 14, 17 July 1934, Page 8

X-RAYS IN INDUSTRY

BRITISH INVESTIGATION

'The National Physical Laboratory is offering facilities for carrying, "out investigations on X-ray crystal' analysis, which is now.used to determine the structure and conditions of***materials used in industry, (says the "Daily Telegraph")

Officers of the laboratory-will -visit works and industrial centres to discuss problems on the spot. The. fees charged will vary) from a fewi guineas: for ' a simple < investigation to large amounts for more complicated tests. No. charges will'7be made for advice, and"lnquiries are welcomed. •■.'.■ ■' ' ■

In a pamphlet issued' by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Besearch, it is stated that X-rays" arc capable of examining crystalliriity.-arid giving information: which can ;be obtained in no other way. ■ l \ X-rays have shown that■crystallinity is fare more prevalent' than was suspected. It is to be found in: metals, woods, minerals, pottery, paints,' even in wool, cotton, hair, rubber, jierve and muscle. 4rid in these cases Valso:. properties- and behaviour: depend largely on the condition of the (crystals.

"Examinations have been jcarried out at the laboratory on:— ; ■-

Jewels for pivots in instruments, opal glasses, porcelains, insulating papers, the, effects,of cold-work and heat treatment on steels and other metals, surface films, patent leather, waTcod papers, rayon, asbestos, lubrication greases, rubbers, cellulose, devitrification of glass, soaps, metallic weld?, synthetic rosins, diamonds for drills,- galvanised coatings, the effects'of-traces- of impurities in metals, ice cream, precious or semi-precious stones, pearls, and a. host of other commercial applications.

' "Since each chemical compound (not morcly'each chemical clement) has its own characteristic atomic " arrangement," states the report, "it has also its own characteristic X-ray diffraction: pattern by which-it can be definitely identified. This fact immediately makes the X-ray study a valuable aid to the ordinary methods of chemical analysis.

. . .. • Thus iron has one ; pattern, carbon another, while the pattern of iron carbide is peculiarly its own and differ, ent from that of its constituents:*'''- -V