NEW ALLOY

Evening Star, Issue 22232, 9 January 1936, Page 11

NEW ALLOY

REGENT DISCOVERY Fifty business men and hankers visited the research laboratories and works of the General Electric Company recently under the auspices, of the National Research Council’s division of engineering and industrial research, and learned how research is conducted and what new discoveries have been made and developed in recent years. The discovery was announced of a new alloy which is magnetic and which can lift 60 times its own weight. Describing the research that led to this discovery W. E. Ruder made it clear how important is observation, in research. This particular combination of metals was originally devised to meet the demand for heat-resisting alloy which would not scale and deteriorate at high temperatures. It was observed that not only was tho alloy able to meet the high heat requirements, but that it was strangely magnetic. Then both the Japanese headed by Professor T. Mishima, of the Imperial University, Tokio, and the Schenectady research workers developed the magnetic possibilities. The alloy is called “ alnico ” because it is a combination of aliminium, nickel, and cobalt, which three metals are added to iron. Like other permanently magnetic metals, it does not magnetise easily. By the same token it does not lose its magnetism readily. Unlike other magnetic metals, it retains its attractive and repulsive powers at high temperatures. As a result of this development permanner magnets will probably displace electro magnets in loud speakers and various control and electric devices, with a considerable saving in cost and greater simplicity of construction. The alloy cannot be machined like iron, but must be cast and then shaped by grinding Small parts, however, can be pressed in powdered form and then finished in the usual way. Mr Ruder predicted that one of the chief applications of alnico would be in the making of transformers. In these the current is reversed 60 times a second with the result that the magnetic circuit loses a little every day in efficiency. A distributor of average size contains about 125 pounds of high quality steel, which deteriorates so that at the end of a year, there is a power loss of 660 killowatt-hours. “ Considering the' many thousands of such transformers in continual use,” he said, “ even a o per cent, reduction in such losses mcans,a saving of millions of dollars annually.”