Stainless, High-Alloy Structural Steels

In the realm of civil engineering the products discussed in this paper are new. The alloys generally used to-day are ferrous products of the mild structural steel type, which have definite physical qualities and stable surface characteristics. The Engineering Profession, therefore, has evolved a design within their limitations and, it may be stated, the curve of progress is now flattening out. Any hope of marked improvement in design involving this grade of steel does not appear possible. Since about 1915 a class of steels has been produced in which the physical properties of the base (plain carbon) have been changed by the addition of alloys. This field of endeavor has been much capitalized in the structural steels for automotive engineering applications, but, otherwise, little use of these properties has been made by civil engineers; and, yet, this evolution in automotive practice accounted for the most important change in steel metallurgy within the last two decades, amounting in 1929 to 1 ton in 15 tons.