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INTRODUCTION TO
Composite
Materials Design
THIRD EDITION
INTRODUCTION TO
Composite
Materials Design
THIRD EDITION
Ever J. Barbero
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts have been
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Preface xv
Acknowledgment xxxv
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Basic Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Design Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Composites Design Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Fracture Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.5 Design for Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5.1 Stochastic Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.5.2 Reliability-Based Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5.3 Load and Resistance Factor Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.5.4 Determination of Resistance Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.5.5 Determination of Load Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.5.6 Basis Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.5.7 Limit States Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2 Materials 37
2.1 Fiber Reinforcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.2 Fiber Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.2.1 Glass Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.2.2 Silica and Quartz Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2.3 Carbon Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.4 Carbon Nanotubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.5 Organic Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.2.6 Boron Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2.7 Ceramic Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2.8 Basalt Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.2.9 Metallic Fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
vii
viii Introduction to Composite Materials Design
3 Manufacturing Processes 85
3.1 Hand Layup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.2 Prepreg Layup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.3 Bag Molding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.4 Autoclave Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.5 Compression Molding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.6 Resin Transfer Molding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.7 Vacuum-Assisted Resin Transfer Molding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.8 Pultrusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
3.9 Filament Winding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.10 Textile Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.10.1 Woven Fabrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.10.2 Knitted Fabrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
3.10.3 Braid Fabrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
3.10.4 Stitched Fabrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
4 Micromechanics 107
4.1 Basic Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.1.1 Volume and Mass Fractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
4.1.2 Representative Volume Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.1.3 Heterogeneous Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.1.4 Anisotropic Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
4.1.5 Orthotropic Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.1.6 Transversely Isotropic Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.1.7 Isotropic Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Table of Contents ix
6 Macromechanics 173
6.1 Plate Stiffness and Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
6.1.1 Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
6.1.2 Strains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
6.1.3 Stress Resultants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
6.1.4 Plate Stiffness and Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
x Introduction to Composite Materials Design
7 Strength 227
7.1 Lamina Failure Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
7.1.1 Strength Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
7.1.2 Maximum Stress Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
7.1.3 Maximum Strain Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
7.1.4 Interacting Failure Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
7.1.5 Hygrothermal Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
7.2 First Ply Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
7.2.1 In Situ Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
7.3 Last Ply Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
7.3.1 Ply Discount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
7.3.2 Truncated-Maximum-Strain Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
7.4 Laminate Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
7.4.1 Universal Carpet Plots: In-Plane Strength . . . . . . . . . . . 262
7.5 Stress Concentrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
7.5.1 Notched Plate under In-Plane Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
8 Damage 283
8.1 Continuum Damage Mechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
8.2 Longitudinal Tensile Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
8.3 Longitudinal Compressive Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
8.4 Transverse Tension and In-Plane Shear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
8.4.1 Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8.4.2 Approximations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8.4.3 Displacement Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Table of Contents xi
10 Beams 351
10.1 Preliminary Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
10.1.1 Design for Deflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
10.1.2 Design for Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
10.1.3 Design for Buckling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
10.1.4 Column Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
10.2 Thin-Walled Beams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
10.2.1 Wall Constitutive Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
10.2.2 Neutral Axis of Bending and Torsion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
10.2.3 Axial Stiffness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
10.2.4 Mechanical Center of Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
xii Introduction to Composite Materials Design
12 Shells 423
12.1 Shells of Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
12.1.1 Symmetric Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
12.2 Cylindrical Shells with General Loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Appendix A 501
A.1 SCILAB Code for Classical Lamination Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
A.2 Periodic Microstructure Micromechanics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
A.3 Longitudinal Compressive Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Bibliography 511
Index 525
Preface to the Third Edition
xv
xvi Introduction to Composite Materials Design
As in previous editions, the textbook contains much more content than what
can be taught in one semester. Therefore, some sections are marked with (*) to
indicate that they can be omitted during a first reading, but are recommended for
further study and reference.
The textbook now contains 88 fully developed examples (13% increase over the
second edition), 204 end-of-chapter problems (22% increase), 49 completely revised
and augmented tables including material properties and other practical information
(36% increase), 177 figures, and 300 bibliographic citations. The solution’s manual
(available to instructors) has been completely revamped with detailed solutions and
explanations. Since the solution’s manual is not available for self-study, a supple-
mentary workbook with a different set of fully solved problems is available for the
second edition [5] and will be soon available for the third edition [6]. The solutions
in both workbooks make reference to the respective editions of this textbook.
I trust that many students, practicing engineers, and instructors will find this
edition to be even more useful than the previous one.
compression. The methodology allows for the prediction of damage initiation, evolu-
tion, stiffness reduction, stress redistribution among laminae, and ultimate laminate
failure.
Chapter 9 includes an in-depth description of fabric-reinforced composites, in-
cluding textile and nontextile composites. The methodology for analysis of textile-
reinforced composites includes the prediction of damage initiation, evolution, stiff-
ness reduction, and laminate failure.
Chapters 10, 11, and 12 are revised versions of similarly titled chapters in the
first edition. The chapters have been revised to include design for reliability and to
correct a few typos in the first edition.
Finally, Chapter 13 is a new chapter dealing with external strengthening of
reinforced-concrete beams, columns, and structural members subjected to both axial
and bending loads. External strengthening has emerged as the most promising and
popular application of composite materials (called FRP) in the civil engineering
sector. Therefore, this chapter offers an opportunity to tailor a course on composites
for civil engineering students or to inform students from other disciplines about this
new market.
In preparing this second edition, all examples have been revised. The number of
examples has grown from 50 in the first edition to 78 in this one. Also, the exercises
at the end of chapters have been revised. The number of exercises has grown from
115 in the first edition to 167 in this one. I trust that many students, practicing
engineers, and instructors will find this edition to be even more useful than the first
one.
This book deals with the design of structures made of composite materials, also
called composites. With composites, the material and the structure are designed
concurrently. That is, the designer can vary structural parameters, such as geome-
try, and at the same time vary the material properties by changing the fiber orienta-
tion, fiber content, etc. To take advantage of the design flexibility composites offer,
it is necessary to understand material selection, fabrication, material behavior, and
structural analysis. This book provides the main tools used for the preliminary de-
sign of composites. It covers all design aspects, including fiber and matrix selection,
fabrication processes, prediction of material properties, and structural analysis of
beams, plates, shells, and other structures. The subject is presented in a concise
form so that most of the material can be covered in a one-semester undergraduate
course.
This book is intended for senior-level engineering students, and no prior know-
ledge of composites is required. Most textbooks on composites are designed for
graduate courses; they concentrate on materials behavior, leaving structural analysis
and design to be covered by other, unspecified, graduate courses. In this book,
structural analysis and design concepts from earlier courses, such as mechanics of
materials, are used to illustrate the design of composite beams, plates, and shells.
Modern analysis and design methodology have been incorporated throughout
the book, rather than adding a myriad of research-oriented material at the end of
the book. The objective was to update the material that is actually taught in a
typical senior technical-elective course rather than adding reference material that
is seldom taught. In addition, design content is included explicitly to provide the
reader with practical design knowledge, thus better preparing the student for the
workplace. Among the improvements, it is worth mentioning the following: A chap-
ter on materials and a chapter on processing, which emphasize the advantages and
disadvantages of various materials and processes, while explaining materials science
and process-engineering topics with structural-engineering terminology. In Chapter
4, proven micromechanical formulas are given for all the properties required in the
design, as well as reference to the American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM)
standards used for testing. In Chapter 6, shear-deformable lamination theory is
presented in lieu of the obsolete classical lamination theory. In Chapter 7, the
truncated-maximum-strain criterion, widely accepted in the aerospace industry, is
explained in detail. Chapters 10, 11, and 12 present simple, yet powerful methods
for the preliminary design of composite beams, plates, stiffened panels, and shells.
The material in these later chapters does not require, for the most part, any back-
ground beyond that provided by the typical engineering curricula in aerospace, civil,
or mechanical engineering.
Design content is distributed throughout the book in the form of special design-
oriented sections and examples. The presentation emphasizes concepts rather than
mathematical derivations. The objective is to motivate students who are interested
in designing useful products with composites rather than performing research. Every
Preface xxi
final equation in every section is useful in the design process. Most of the equations
needed for design are programmed into the accompanying software to eliminate
the need for tedious computations on part of the students. The software, enti-
tled Computer Aided Design Environment for Composites (CADEC), is a windows
application with an intuitive, web-browser-like graphical user interface, including
a help system fully cross-referenced to the book. Examples are used to illustrate
aspects of the design process. Suggested exercises at the end of each chapter are
designed to test the understanding of the material presented.
Composites design involves synthesis of information about materials, manufac-
turing processes, and stress-analysis to create a useful product. An overview of
the design process as well as composites terminology are introduced in Chapter 1,
followed by a description of materials and manufacturing processes in Chapters 2
and 3. Composites design also involves stress- and deformation-analysis to predict
how the proposed structure/material combination will behave under load. Since a
one-semester course could be spent on analysis alone, an effort has been made in
this book to simplify the presentation of analysis methods, leaving time for design
topics.
Composites design can be accomplished following one of various methodologies
outlined in Chapter 1 and developed throughout Chapters 4 to 7. The instructor
can choose from the various design options described in Section 1.2 to strike a
balance between simplicity and generality. Self-study readers are encouraged to
read through Chapters 4 to 7, with the exception of those sections marked with a
star (*), which can be studied afterward. The book is thoroughly cross-referenced
to allow the reader to consult related material as needed. Since the constituent
materials (fiber and matrix) as well as the manufacturing process influence the
design of a composite structure, the designer should understand the characteristics
and limitations of various materials as well as manufacturing processes used in the
fabrication of composites, which are described in Chapters 2 and 3.
Prediction of composite properties from fiber and matrix data is presented in
Chapter 4. Although composite properties could be obtained experimentally, the
material in Chapter 4 is still recommended as the basis for understanding how
fiber-reinforced materials work. Only those formulas useful in design are presented,
avoiding lengthy derivations or complex analytical techniques of limited practical
use. Some of the more complex formulas are presented without derivations. Deriva-
tions are included only to enhance the conceptual understanding of the behavior of
composites.
Unlike traditional materials, such as aluminum, composite properties vary with
the orientation, having higher stiffness and strength along the fiber direction. There-
fore, the transformations required to analyze composite structures along arbitrary
directions not coinciding with the fiber direction are presented in Chapter 5. Fur-
thermore, composites are seldom used with all the fibers oriented in only one di-
rection. Instead, laminates are created by stacking laminae with fibers in various
orientations to efficiently carry the loads. The analysis of such laminates is presented
in Chapter 6, with numerous design examples.
xxii Introduction to Composite Materials Design
The market for composites is growing steadily, including commodity type appli-
cations in the automotive, civil infrastructure, and other emerging markets. Because
of the growing use of composites in such varied industries, many practicing engineers
feel the need to design with these new materials. This book attempts to reach both
the senior-level engineering student as well as the practicing engineer who has no
prior training in composites. Practicality and design are emphasized in the book,
not only in the numerous examples but also in the material’s explanation. Struc-
tural design is explained using elementary concepts of mechanics of materials, with
examples (beams, pressure vessels, etc.) that resemble those studied in introductory
courses. I expect that many students, practicing engineers, and instructors will find
this to be a useful text on composites.
hat () b Average
tilde () e Undamaged (virgin) or effective quantity
overline () Transformed, usually to laminate coordinates
α Load factor. Also, fiber misalignment
α0 Angle of the fracture plane
α1 , α2 Longitudinal and transverse coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE)
αA , αT Axial and transverse CTE of fibers
[α] Membrane compliance of a laminate
[α] In-plane compliance of a laminate
[β] Bending-extension compliance of a laminate
[δ] Bending compliance of a laminate
θk Orientation of lamina k in a laminate
β1 , β2 Longitudinal and transverse coefficient of moisture expansion
δb , δs Bending and shear deflections of a beam
1t Ultimate longitudinal tensile strain (strain-to-failure)
2t Ultimate transverse tensile strain (strain-to-failure)
1c Ultimate longitudinal compressive strain (strain-to-failure)
2c Ultimate transverse compressive strain (strain-to-failure)
f u Ultimate fiber tensile strain (strain-to-failure)
mu Ultimate matrix tensile strain (strain-to-failure)
Strain tensor
εij Strain components in tensor notation
α Strain components in contracted notation
eα Elastic strain
pα Plastic strain
0x , 0y , γxy
0 Strain components at the midsurface of a shell
e Effective strain in contracted notation (6 = γ6 )
εe Effective strain in tensor notation (6 = γ6 /2)
γ6u Ultimate shear strain (strain-to-failure)
0
γxy In-plane shear strain
κx , κy , κxy Curvatures of the midsurface of a shell
κσ , κF Load and resistance coefficient of variance (COV)
λ Lamé constant, Crack density, Weibull scale parameter
xxv
xxvi Introduction to Composite Materials Design
This faraway land of the North is the treasure cave of Jack Frost,
where gold and gravel are cemented together by perpetual ice. You
know of the thousands who rushed here years ago, and of the
hundreds who went back loaded with riches. You may have heard
how the district about Dawson, where I am writing, produced gold by
the ton, the output for ten years being worth more than one hundred
million dollars.
In those days pockets worth hundreds of dollars were not
uncommon. In August, 1899, George T. Coffey took up two
shovelfuls of earth from Bonanza Creek, from which he washed
sixty-three ounces of gold, worth nearly a thousand dollars. A miner
by the name of MacDonald got ninety-four thousand dollars for the
gold from a forty-foot patch of ground. Some of the miners on
Bonanza Creek were dissatisfied if the gravel ran less than a dollar a
pan. They worked the rich spots only, and when the cream had been
skimmed off the surface, gave up their claims.
The gold diggers were followed by corporations. They brought to
the abandoned fields millions in capital and the best mining
machinery. They thawed the frozen gravel with steam and scooped
up the gold-bearing earth with dredges run by electricity. They
carried rivers in pipes over the mountains to wash down the gold-
sprinkled hills. They handled millions of tons of material, each of
which yielded only a few grains of pure gold, but altogether they
produced as much wealth as was taken out in those first prosperous
years by the individual miners.
There are two methods by which the treasure that has been left
is being recovered. One is hydraulic mining and the other is
dredging. Let me give you some of the pictures of the first method,
as I saw it on a ride up the Klondike Valley this afternoon. I went with
the resident manager of the Yukon Gold Company, the Guggenheim
corporation doing most of the gold mining in the Dawson district. We
flew along in a high-powered automobile, winding in and out through
great piles of débris. We rode up Bonanza and Eldorado creeks,
which have been dredged from one end to the other. The whole way
was through a mass of gravel, rock, and earth washings. The beds
of the rivers and creeks had been ploughed in great furrows many
feet deep. There were places where miles of boulders, pebbles, and
broken rock seemed to flow down the mountain sides into the valley.
Streams of water as big around as the thigh of a man were shooting
from pipes with such force that they gouged out great chunks of icy
gravel. In some places the water dropped from the top of the
mountain, washing down the earth in its fall. The whole gave me the
impression of a mighty cloudburst that had torn down the hills and let
loose avalanches of earth.
The story behind those streams of water will give you some idea
of the marvels of mining in the Far North. When the company bought
what were supposed to be the exhausted creeks of the Klondike, it
found that in order to work its concessions it must have water with
sufficient force to wash out the hills. There was no adequate supply
nearer than the Tombstone Mountains, seventy-odd miles away. The
Guggenheims spent four years and millions of dollars in bringing this
river to their gold fields. They carried it across frozen morasses,
through vast ravines, down stupendous valleys, and then lifted it
over mountains and delivered it by a great inverted siphon across
the Klondike River to the once famous diggings.
Much of the ditch had to be thawed out and cut from the
perpetual ice. In crossing the swamps new methods of road building
had to be devised, and men and machinery were assembled far in
the interior of a region once thought inaccessible to all but the most
daring arctic explorers. The supplies, mostly from the United States,
had to come a thousand miles over the ocean and then be carried
five hundred miles more across the mountains and down the Yukon
to Dawson. Machinery was taken to pieces and dragged by horses
and dogs through almost impassable wilds.
The water flows through about twenty miles of flume, twelve and
a half miles of steel and stave pipes, and thirty-eight miles of ditch. It
comes out at the rate of one hundred and twenty-five cubic feet a
second, and with a pressure of four hundred pounds to the square
inch.
As the stream is applied, the gold-bearing sand, gravel, and
water go tumbling down into sluice boxes filled with steel riffles
bedded in mercury. The quicksilver catches the gold, while the rock
and sand go on to the tailings below. Some of the gold sinks into the
pile at the foot of the sluicing, but this is reclaimed at the clean-up in
the fall. Something like three million cubic yards of earth are treated
in this way by the hydraulic giants each season. The average
amount of gold in the gravel is about twenty cents’ worth per yard,
and of this amount one half is said to be profit. The dividends paid by
the Yukon Gold Company have amounted to more than ten million
dollars, and the profits of a single year have been as much as one
million.
As we rode up the valleys I asked the manager whether this
process took out all of the gold. He replied:
“We may lose a cent or two to the ton, but the amount is so small
that we are unable to tell just what it is. The gold content varies a
good deal. The stuff that goes through the dredges may at times
yield sixty cents a yard, and we have struck patches that ran five
dollars per yard or more.
“The old miners threw away the values that are now being
saved,” he went on. “One day I showed an old-timer a pan I had just
finished washing, and asked him how much he thought it would run.
The pan contained a few flakes of gold and quite a little fine flour
gold. The miner tilted it so that the grains ran to one side, and then
took his thumb and scraped out the flour and threw it away. He threw
out just the sort of stuff which we are trying to save, and upon which
all our calculations are based.”
The dredges, by which much of the gold is now being taken out,
operate in ground that has to be thawed before it can be worked.
With the exception of a foot or so at the surface, this whole Klondike
region is one mass of ice, mixed with boulders, pebbles, and sand
that has been frozen for thousands of years. The ice goes down no
one knows how deep. Diamond drills sunk to a depth of three
hundred feet have gone all the way through frozen earth. The
mixture is covered by a thin bed of muck, on top of which grows a
layer of arctic moss. It is only when the moss and the muck are
stripped off that the hot summer sun makes any impression on the
ice below. Sprinkled through this ice, earth, and rock lies the gold in
the proportion of from thirty to sixty cents’ worth to the ton. In a
wagon load of this mass there is not more pure gold than you can
pinch up between your forefinger and thumb. Yet methods for mining
it have been devised that make it worth going after. There is a little
gold not far from the surface, but most of it is at bed-rock, which may
be thirty, forty, or fifty feet down.
The earth has to be thawed out, inch by inch, and foot by foot, in
such a way that the dredges can bite into it and gulp it down at the
rate of twenty-six bites to the minute and about one third of a ton to
the bite.
The dredges do their work so thoroughly that no bit of earth ever
escapes them. You can throw a red cent into the heart of a ten-acre
field that is to be upturned by these machines and be sure that the
coin will come out with the gold. A common amusement is to saw a
dime in two and then bet whether the dredges will bring up one of
the pieces. The man who bets in the negative holds one of the
halves, and the other is buried in the earth. As soon as that spot is
dredged, the missing half is almost certain to turn up.
The first miners kept wood fires burning until they had thawed
their shafts down to the gold. Other fires were then built along the
bed-rock and the earth was dugout until they had made great
caverns and tunnels thirty or forty feet under the frozen earth
overhead. They used hot stones to aid in the thawing and took out
the loosened material in wheel-barrows and raised it to the surface
with buckets and a windlass like an old-fashioned well-sweep. The
earth being frozen, the miners did not have to bother to use any
timbers to support the roofs of their tunnels.
Much of the thawing of to-day is done by steam forced into the
earth through steel tubes three fourths of an inch in diameter, and
from ten to thirty feet long. These are called “points.” Each tube has
a hard metal cap or steel head on the top, and below this an opening
where the connection with the main steam pipe is made. The bottom
of the tube is pointed so that it can be forced down into the ground. A
man stands on a tall derrick and with a twelve-pound sledge hammer
drives the pipe, inch by inch, through the earth. The steam-heated
steel melts the ice as it goes down. When the point reaches bed-
rock, it is left there for two or three days, oozing forth steam. To thaw
out enough ground for the dredges to work on, hundreds of these
steam points have to be sunk. In places the pipes are so close
together that they stand out on the back of old Mother Earth like the
quills on a porcupine. They soften the ground so that it is dangerous
to walk over it until it has cooled. A man may think it is solid under
foot, when all at once he may sink to his knees or waist in scalding
hot mud.
In the creeks where the Yukon Gold Company has been
operating with steam points and dredges, the values amount to sixty
or seventy cents’ worth of gold to the ton. The thawing costs about
thirty cents for each ton. When the famous Joe Boyle, organizer of
the Canadian Klondike Company, came to figure on his problem he
found that the steam-point method would cost him four cents more a
ton than the value of the gold he could recover. He concluded that if
he could get rid of the great non-conductor of muck and moss that
covered the frozen earth, the sun of a few summers would eventually
thaw its way down to bed-rock.
Then came the question of how to strip off the muck at a cost
that would not eat up the profits. Boyle decided that the Klondike
River itself could be made to do the job. He dammed it in places and
turned its course this way and that. The current soon cleaned off the
top layer, and when the water was drawn off it left the gravel
exposed to the rays of the sun.
Boyle spent in the neighbourhood of a half million dollars apiece
for some of the dredges with which he scooped up the earth thawed
out by the sun. They were the largest ever built up to that time, and
were manufactured especially for his purposes. They were brought
in pieces by sea to Skagway, Alaska, carried over the coast
mountains by train, and transported down the Yukon by steamer to
Dawson, where they were put to work. They are now lifting the bed
of the Klondike Valley and turning it upside down at the rate of five
hundred tons in an hour. Buckets that hold a ton apiece pick up
boulders as big as a half-bushel basket and earth as fine as flour.
They raise this stuff to the height of a six-story house and pour it
through revolving screens. The rock, gravel, and sand are carried
away, and the gold is caught in layers of coconut matting. Every
twenty-four hours the mats containing the gold are lifted and
washed. The gold and the black sand fall to the bottom and the mats
are put back again.
While I was cashing a draft at the Bank of British North America
the other day, I had concrete evidence of the wealth being won, grain
by grain, from the Klondike. I saw a shipment of gold ready to be
sent out. It had come to the bank in the form of dust and nuggets
and had been melted down into bricks. There were fifty thousand
dollars’ worth of these bricks lying on the counter, covering a space
about three feet square. They were of a light yellow colour, and
some were almost white on account of their high percentage of
silver. Some were the size of a cake of laundry soap while others
were only as big as a cake of milk chocolate. I lifted one of the larger
ones. It weighed a little more than twelve pounds and its value was
two thousand dollars. Later I saw the bank clerk put the bricks into
canvas bags and label them for export by registered mail.
Leaving the bank, I dropped in at the offices of the Northern
Commercial Company, where I watched gold dust and nuggets being
made ready for shipment to the States. The gold filled two satchels
and was worth in the neighbourhood of one hundred thousand
dollars. It was put up in little sacks the size of a five-pound salt bag.
Each sack was worth from five to ten thousand dollars.
All gold that is shipped out of Canada pays a royalty or tax to the
government, and everyone who leaves the Klondike is examined to
see that he has no gold upon him. Once a woman succeeded in
smuggling out a large quantity of nuggets and dust. She was
examined by the inspectors, but they took no account of a big flower
pot containing a rose bush that she was carrying with her. Not until
she got safely away was it learned that the soil with which the pot
seemed to be filled was only half an inch deep and that underneath
were hundreds of dollars’ worth of almost pure gold.
CHAPTER XXXVI
ROMANCES OF THE KLONDIKE