Aluminium: the Metal and its Alloys

Abstract

ALUMINIUM and its alloys are now used very extensively in almost all branches of erigftiepring, and new uses for them are found every year, even in competition with steel. A trustworthy compilation of knowledge concerning them would therefore be of value to the engineer as well as to the metallurgist. This has been attempted by the author of the present work, unfortunately with imperfect success. He has shown great patience and industry in collecting data, but the treatment of the subject is unsatisfactory, and when information on some point of known technical importance is sought, the statement, are too often found to be vague or inaccurate. More information as to manufacturing processes would have been welcomed, for such is now to be found scattered through the technical journals, although not as yet systematically collected and reviewed. Die-casting, for example, is used to a far greater extent than would be supposed from the references to it here, and the original difficulties in casting aluminium alloys under pressure have been largely overcome. The ‘imaginary’ equilibrium diagrams are scarcely a substitute for accurate knowledge, and in fact much more is known of the more important systems than is here indicated. There is much that is of value in the book, and the experienced metallurgist will make critical use of the tables of physical and mechanical data. The photo-micrographs at the end of the volume are of excellent quality, and illustrate the immense improvement in the technique of preparing these rather difficult alloys for the microscope which has occurred iri the last year or two.

Aluminium: the Metal and its Alloys.

(A Critical Descriptive Treatise.) By M. G. Corson. Including Chapter on Structurography, prepared in co-operation with J. R. Vilella. Pp. xx + 291 + 122 plates. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1926.) 36s. net.