Problems of Electrical Steel, No. 1 (Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR), 152 pp., 1938.

The first collection, devoted to problems of electrical steel, contains 10 articles on theoretical and practical questions of ferromagnetism.

It opens with an article by Prof. V. K. Arkad’ev defining the tasks of the Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on conducting and magnetic materials. This is followed by several theoretical and experimental studies: on the penetration of a line into a ferromagnet, their resistance and inductance under alternating current (articles by V. K. Arkad’ev and Cherniavskaia), and on the magnetization of a cylinder in an aperiodic field (article by A. N. Tikhonov). Another group of works concerns the magnetization of iron sheets—on the penetration of magnetic flux into a plate of iron with magnetic viscosity (V. K. Arkad’ev), on the aperiodic magnetization of a plate (A. N. Tikhonov), on the magnetic characteristics of transformer steel (O. I. Velezkaia), and on magnetic viscosity during the remagnetization of iron (V. R. Telesnin). The complex problem posed by V. K. Arkad’ev of the aperiodic process of magnetizing an iron sheet is solved in this book and both an exact and an approximate solution are presented.

The article by V. S. Meskina discusses the question of producing soft-magnetic and special magnetic alloys (transformer steel, permalloy, perminvar, etc.). Another article (by A. S. Zaimovskii) deals with alloys for permanent magnets (tungsten steels, cobalt steels, etc.).

The collection concludes with an excerpt from the resolution of the 1st enlarged meeting of the Commission, outlining a broad program of measures whose implementation should ensure the high quality of magnetic materials for various needs. The broad scope of the envisaged work must be welcomed; it fully corresponds to the needs of the country and to the nature of the third five-year plan, in which great attention is paid to high-quality steels and alloys.

N. Nikitin, Moscow