Beryllium Developments and the Outlook for Supply

DEVELOPMENTS respecting beryllium during the past year have been sufficient to center attention on it as likely to be the most important of any of the chemical elements that have recently found a place for themselves in technical industry. This importance is only potential, however, largely because adequate supplies of beryllium ore will be necessary. The beryllium industry will be only as great as the mines which support it. To find and develop large mines will be the problem. Chief of the immediate commercial developments in the United States is beryllium-copper and its espousal by Anaconda and Riverside even at present high prices. According to the pamphlets of these companies, it ap¬pears that beryllium is to copper nearly what carbon is to iron. When one considers that the tensile strength of pure copper is about 33,000 lb. per sq. in., but that the addition of 1.5 to 2.5 per cent of beryllium produces a heat-treatable alloy with a maximum tensile strength of 220,000 lb. or over, the analogy to carbon and iron is made strikingly, clear. Striking among the properties of beryllium-copper is its resistance to fatigue, claimed to be equal or superior to that of spring steel. It needs little imagination to foresee a great industry for this alloy alone.