National Affairs: Beryllium

Just as molybdenum and tungsten were obscure metals until it was found that they alloyed with steel to make a superlatively hard cutting material, so beryllium, discovered in 1797, has until recently remained unnoticed.

Beryllium, next to lithium, is the lightest metal, only 1.84 times as heavy as water, two-thirds as heavy as aluminum. Re-search into means of producing it for less than $100 per Ib. has been spurred by aviation’s need of light, strong metals. If a statement last week by Alfred Schwarz, Manhattan businessman, one-time Green Cananea Co. metallurgist, proves true, a great new metal industry may be launched. His statement: that he can, by a process of his invention, make pure beryllium for $2 per Ib.

Immediate significance suggested by Metallurgist Schwarz: ”A proper alloy with aluminum, consisting of 50% to 70% beryllium, will make a structural material for airships and airplanes which, because of its lightness and strength, can be used in smaller cross-sections, thus reducing the weight of any given ship by about one-half.

“This will . . . afford more payload capacity. . . . Beryllium seems to be the metal that will make commercial airplanes out of the present day flying gasoline tanks.”

Germany’s great electrical concern, Siemens & Halske, has another use for the hundreds of pounds of beryllium which it has made. Alloyed with copper, it increases the conductivity of electric wires by nearly 100%.

Siemens & Halske’s beryllium has been manufactured by a slow electrolytic process. The Schwarz process is a heat treatment. From a ton of beryl ore costing $100, Metallurgist Schwarz says he can obtain 100 Ib. of pure beryllium. The ore is plentiful in New Hampshire. New York, the Carolinas, Colorado, usually being found with feldspar deposits.

Next problem for metallurgists is to develop a beryllium alloy which is not brittle. While most aluminum-beryllium alloys will stand tensile (pulling) stresses of around 70,000 Ib. per square inch, they will support only slight bending stresses. Thin sheets of a 70-30 beryllium-alu-minum alloy will break like stiff cardboard.