Tungsten: a Treatise on its Metallurgy, Properties, and Applications

Abstract

TUNGSTEN is a metal which presents so many points of special interest both from the practical and the scientific aspect, that a treatise dealing with it in detail is welcome. From the time when tungstic acid was first prepared by Scheele in 1781 and Bergman soon afterwards isolated the metal, tungsten remained a rare metal, and it only began to assume industrial importance as the result of the work of Oxland in 1847–57. The important position which the metal now occupies, both in connexion with the electric lamp industry and for the production of high-speed tool steel, is an often-quoted but none the less instructive example of the way in which a curiosity of the laboratory may become a valuable product of industry. Apart from this historical interest, however, the properties of tungsten itself are remarkable. The metal, at room temperatures and slightly above these, is chemically inert, and uses based on its resistance to oxidation and to chemical attack are numerous and important. Its application to electric contacts may be recalled. On the other hand, at higher temperatures, tungsten becomes chemically much more active, combining readily with oxygen and even exerting a strong reducing action on the oxides of other elements. For this reason, both in the manufacturing processes applied to it and in its practical applications at elevated temperatures, it must be kept out of contact with oxygen or other oxidising agencies. As a result we find that it is hot-worked usually in an atmosphere of hydrogen, or maintained in a vacuum or in an inert atmosphere such as nitrogen or argon.

Tungsten: a Treatise on its Metallurgy, Properties, and Applications.

By Dr. Colin J. Smithells. Pp. viii + 167 + 33 plates. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1926.) 21s. net.