Word: blasts
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Raytheon gets around this problem by putting frozen foods in a vacuum chamber and shooting through them a powerful blast of ultrahigh-frequency radio energy. The waves agitate the molecules in the interior of the food and generate just enough heat to make the ice crystals turn directly into water vapor. If the job is handled properly, the food loses up to nine-tenths of its weight and turns into a brittle sort of substance while staying far below the freezing point. Chemical changes, which would damage flavor, cannot take place. Even unstable vitamins are preserved...
...some 250 years iron has been made by charging a blast furnace with ore, limestone and coke. When a blast of air is shot up through the furnace, the burning coke turns the mixture into a molten mass which separates into iron and slag. In the Madaras "direct-reduction" process, the ore is laid down in a bed minus the coke and limestone, hot hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide are pumped through it, smelting out the iron...
...steelmakers, perfection of a direct-reduction process would be almost as important as was the development of the blast furnace, chiefly because it would make commercially feasible the establishment of steel plants in coal-poor areas and drastically cut the costs of expansion. To keep up with the growing U.S. economy, steelmen estimate that they must add up to 70 million tons of capacity in the next 15 years, and at a cost of $20 billion if they use present methods of steelmaking. Thus the potential saving is so great that nearly every big steelmaker is experimenting with a direct...
...Hydrocarbon Research. Inc. and Bethlehem Steel have developed and extensively tested their "H-Iron" process. This process has the unique distinction of being the only one on which detailed cost figures have so far been revealed. Hydrocarbon's Dr. Arthur M. Squires recently told an audience of oldtime blast furnacemen in Pittsburgh that a 2,200-ton-a-day "H-Iron" plant can now be built in Texas for $23 million or on the East Coast for $24 million v. $47 million for a blast furnace with the same capacity. Squires estimated that fuel costs in gas-rich Texas...
There are some disadvantages to the direct-reduction method. It does not remove as many impurities as a blast furnace, thus may necessitate more processing of low-grade ores. But with certain types of fine ores that mills are starting to use, it works better. Steelmen believe that most of the bugs in the direct-reduction method will be worked out in a year or so, and then one of the major companies may take the plunge and build a big plant. The first one would probably be built in the South or West, where the absence or high cost...