Scientific American Magazine Vol 171 Issue 6

Scientific American Magazine

Volume 171, Issue 6

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Features

Power Transmission Tamed

Factory Power Transmissions, Once Great Accident Producers, are Now Among the Safest Things in the Shop. Further, They are Quieter, More Efficient, More Accurately Controllable than Ever Before. They Absorb Vibration and Shocks Protecting Machines and Power Sources Alike

Edwin Laird Cady

Petroleum's 'Big Three'

Basic Processes Which Have Been Developed for Production of High-Octane Gasoline are Certain to be Turned to New Uses. Plastics, Perfumes, and Insecticides Are Only a Few of the Materials Which May Someday be Produced by One or More of the New Catalytic Processes

F. J. Van Antwerpen, D. H. Killeffer

Steel Treating

Wartime Advances in the Heat Treatment of Munition Steel Not Only Assure Higher Quality Steel Parts at Lower Cost for Peace-Time Products, but Will be Responsible for Widespread Changes in the Design and Performance of Lighter or More Powerful Engines and Machines

Fred P. Peters

A Miracle of Production

Under Vastly Increased Demand, Aircraft Engine Builders Stepped Up Production Squarely in the Face of a Diminishing Supply of Skilled Labor. One Manufacturer's Methods, Which Successfully Accomplished the Impossible, Involved Many Special-Purpose, High-Production Tools

Alexander Klemin

Electronic Controls

Second-by-Second Measurements of Gas Content of Air: Constant Supervision of Rate of Flow of Liquid in a Pipeline; and Control of a Specialized Dislillalion System are Only Three Examples of the Possibililies of Electronic Conlrol in Everyday Induslrial Operations

Keith Henney, Vin Zeluff

Why Engines Knock

Fuel Knocking Can Threaten Destruction to Engines. Technologists Are Familiar With Some of the Answers to the Problems Involved, But Many More Data Are Required. New Research with a Full-Scale Engine Test Stand Is Pointing the Way Toward Better Fuels for All Gasoline Engines

Albert G. Ingalls, W. J. Sweeney

Glass in Textiles

Problems of Filament Formation and Lubrication Have Been Solved, and Extensive Experimental Work is Going Forward on Combinations of Glass and Other Fibers. Coated Glass Fabrics Open Entirely New Fields of Application, as Do Also Glass-Plastics Combinations in Laminate Form

William H. Page

Departments

Previews of the Industrial Horizon, December 1944

50 Years Ago, December 1944

New Products, December 1944

Current Bulletin Briefs, December 1944

Our Book Corner, December 1944

Telescoptics, December 1944