New York Paper - Piping and Segregation of Ingots of Steel and Ductility-Tests for Open-Hearth Steel Rails

The piping and segregation of ingots of steel is a comprehensive subject, and must be studied in reference to the different grades of soft, medium, and hard steel, rather than to discuss it in a general manner, as though applicable to all grades. Rail steel, however, will receive the most consideration in this paper, for the wheel-loads of the motive power and rolling stock have doubled from 1890 to 1910. Steel rails and tires which were efficient under the light loads, became less serviceable under the double wheel-loads, quadrupled tonnage, and higher speeds. Bessemer Steel. Bessemer steel of from 0.10 to 0.15 per cent. of carbon, for splice-bars, spikes, and tie-plates, rises in setting, and is cast in bottle-mouthed molds, which must be capped to prevent an overflow from the top. This grade of steel rises in the molds and makes a longer ingot than the volume of molten steel when first teemed. The ingots which are allowed to cool and then cut open, show, particularly in the upper part, large occluded blow-holes, and when they are not oxidized or do not contain foreign matter, weld more or less completely when the steel is rolled or forged above 1,100° C., and it is in this way that the blow-holes are closed in the low-carbon steels. Boiler-Plate and Fire-Box Steel. These grades often contain more or less minute laminations, which are the remains of small blow-holes forming after the setting metal has reached a pasty condition. The blow-holes in the low-carbon steels have not been prevented by usiug deox-idizers, though the ingots are slightly improved so far as the soundness of the steel is concerned. This grade of steel also rises in the molds in setting.