Page 104 - MY STORY

They even had the temerity to compare the relative

weights of their hypothetical components to well proven
and productionized metal pressure vessels, which showed
the superiority of reinforced plastic over metal.

To me, as a metallurgist, that was bad enough, but they
made it even more ludicrous by using strength properties
of metals that were basically out of date, and of

significantly lower strength than those being used in
production at that time.

Infuriating!!!

I was scheduled to present a paper at a national American
Society for Metals (ASM) symposium, titled something
like “The Status of Advanced Titanium Alloys.” At least
I think that’s what it was supposed to be. Instead, I

presented a lecture comparing current state-of-the-art
very high strength metal pressure vessels to hypothetical

reinforced plastic pressure vessels. I selected data to
show that the reinforced-plastics experts were, at best,
fudging the data by using more than optimistic strength

data for their product compared to the same product using
steels that were no longer in use.