Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Ceramic Engineering - Journal Article [PAGE 3]

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THE JOURNAL

OF INDUSTRIAL

AND ENGINEERING

CHEMISTRY

3

ft set of laboratory rolls and a small jaw crusher. An air compressor is provided for special needs and a rotary blower and oil pump supply the oil burners. The kiln building also provides bins for the storage of fuel, clays and refractories; and a small classroom and a laboratory equipped with tables for the testing of clays and specimens burned in the kilns. The department library is provided with a well selected set of books dealing with ceramics and its allied sciences, as well as complete sets of the ceramic journals. The museum has a small but growing collection of ceramic wares and samples of raw materials. The lecture room has seating capacity for 90 students, and is equipped with the necessary lecture table and lantern facilities. Wall cases for the storage of mineral and clay samples and specimens required for class demonstration, will be provided in this room. The drafting room provides space for the accommodation of r6 students, as well as filing cases for the storage of plans and blueprints of the various types of industrial plants. The chemical, physical and research laboratories on the second floor are equipped with the usual laboratory desks and other equipment necessary in such laboratories. The high temperature laboratory is intended* for research work with electric furnaces. A 5-kilowatt motor generator set and a 10-kilowatt transformer are provided in this room. •. The department also possesses a variety of measuring instruments, such as indicating and recording pyrometers and optical pyrometers for the measurement of high temperatures, amperemeters, voltmeters, various types of electric furnaces and petrographic microscopes for general research work. The buildings and equipment of the Ceramic Engineering Department represent an investment of about $200,000. An illustrated booklet describing the Department of Ceramic Engineering, its organization, purposes, and equipment was published by the University for distribution at the dedication exercises. SCIENCE AS AW AGENCY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PORTLAND CEMENT INDUSTRIES

By J. P. BECK

General Manager Portland Cement Association

Probably few laymen are aware of the debt which modern industries owe to scientific research. To Dr. Stratton, fellow alumnus of this University, the Portland cement industry, as one example, is indebted to a remarkable degree. Under his able guidance, the United States Bureau of Standards, of which he is the distinguished head, has been of incalculable benefit not only to the Portland cement industry itself but to the many industries which have sprung from it as parent. Leaders of industry recognize that in the face of present-day conditions, correct standards of measurement, quality or performance call for continuous scientific, technical research of the highest order. To this end the Bureau of Standards has contributed far more liberally in many industries than is generally known. The topic which has been assigned to me might lead you to think that I am a scientist. Let me disabuse your minds of that thought. When I received Dr. Goss' invitation to address you at my alma mater on this occasion, I could look at it only in the tight of a command. I feel that he might have chosen more wisely, because although my varied connections with the cement industry have afforded me some opportunities to learn what an agency science has been in developing the Portland cement industries, these connections have not qualified me to discuss this development from the scientist's aspect. I shall, therefore, disclaim originality for the thoughts which I shall endeavor to present to you, because they have been gleaned largely from the writings of those really responsible for placing the Portland cement industry and the industries dependent upon it. In the position which they occupy to-day,

For a number of years, all manufacturing industries have recognized the Importance of conducting scientific research and applying the disclosures which such research has made. Science has improved processes and has disclosed a better knowledge of the properties of materials upon which the useful qualities of those materials depend. Science helps modern industry to meet competition, to raise standards of product, to decrease cost of production, to raise standards of living. Science has been at the base of all these ends at least to a contributory extent in practically every industry of any magnitude. For years it has been the underlying policy of all great industrial leaders to surround themselves with and make partners of competent experts, the best scientific equipment and that keen intuition supplemented by long experience such as the laboratory expert, for instance, possesses. The manufacture of Portland cement combines the mechanical and chemical—processes largely suggested by the mechanical engineer and the chemist. As time is measured, Portland cement is still something of a youngster. It may be said to have had its origin in 1756 from researches made by John Smeaton, an English engineer. Smeaton was employed by the English Government to build a lighthouse upon a group of partly exposed rocks in the English Channel His work demanded a cementing material that would set under water as well as in air, and in searching around for such a material he discovered that an impure or clayey limestone, when burned and slaked, would meet requirements better than anything so far known. The clayey limestone which he used was found in Cornwall. From it he made a hydraulic lime which, when mixed with puzzolana, a pumice-like material of volcanic origin, produced a satisfactory mortar which he used when building the Eddystone .Lighthouse. But although Smeaton's cement was undoubtedly an excellent structural material, it was never widely used because puzzolana is found only in a few volcanic regions, notably Italy, where from almost time immemorial it has been used in the making of the so-called Roman cements. Smeaton's discovery, however, paved the way for that improvement and development in the lime and cement industries which ultimately led up to the original Portland cement, made and patented by Joseph Aspdin, in England in 1824. The fact that Aspdin's product resembled in color, after hardening, the famous old English Portland stone,,is responsible for the name Portland cement. Aspdin's patent involved calcining a mixture of limestone and clay, these materials being raised to a temperature sufficient to result in a clinker. Scientific knowledge was scant during the early stages of the development of the Portland cement industry hi England, so proper proportions of limestone and clay to be used were discovered by burning experimental mixtures and testing the physical properties of the resulting product. isroSh

THE CHEMISTRY OP CEMENTS

The first knowledge of the chemistry of cements probably came from various investigations carried on in France. Of these early researches the ones that have no doubt done most to establish studies which followed, were those of M. Vicat* Vicat made an attempt to determine the relation between the quality of hydraulic lime, cement and the chemical composition of the stone from which they are derived; likewise the nature of the chemical compounds formed during burning and the changes which took place when the cement was mixed with water and hardened. Although Vicat did not attain the ends which he sought, his studies resulted in some interesting theories that have done much to guide scientific research since his time. When the manufacture of Portland cement was first undertaken in the United States, the natural tendency was to follow closely the practice prevailing in Europe, both as to raw materials and processes. Then nearly all of the European plants used