Aircraft Gas Turbine Laboratory

Although most of the engineers at the General Electric Company's Aircraft Gas Turbine Division laboratories do not consider themselves detectives, they spend most of their time "just getting the facts." To aid them in their search for clues to a better jet engines is this new Vacuum Fusion Gas Analyzer which is used to determine the exact amount of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen in various metals and alloys. The gas content of a metal affects its strength. This is particularly true of titanium, the new "light weight champion" alloy so called because of its lower density and high strength. The metal under test is first heated in a small furnace to temperatures as high as 2400 degrees Centigrade to release the gases. The gases, caught in the glass tubing, circulate to a collection bulb where the engineer is able to determine the smallest residues of gas and is able to separate each gas for further analysis. The apparatus can determine if there are 10 parts of gas per million with an accuracy of plus of minus 10 per cent of the amount present.