Big 50, Thought this was worth posting...

[frankyluckman]

Just a heads up. I Totally approve of my tax dollars being spent on programs like this..

“The Fifty”

Approaching Alcoa’s 50,000-ton forging press feels a bit like approaching an alp: it starts out incomprehensibly huge and keeps getting incomprehensibly huger. From a distance, the thing dominates the horizon of the hangar-like Cleveland Works facility; as you get nearer, catching glimpses through forests of girders and around cliffs of firebrick, it begins to dominate the air above. But even as you stand at its foot, being told that the eight steel bolts anchoring it are 40 inches thick, calculating in your head that that makes them 10 feet around—even then it’s still a bit out of reach. Only when you climb it, peer down from its sixth-floor summit, and realize that the puny machine next to it is, in fact, its 35,000-ton brother—well, then you finally appreciate the size of the thing. It’s big.

The Fifty, as it’s known in company shorthand, broke down three years ago, and there was talk of retiring it for good. Instead, it was overhauled and is scheduled to resume service early this year. One of the great machines of American industry has been reborn.

A forging press is—begging the forgiveness of the engineering gods—essentially a waffle iron for metal. An ingot, usually heated to increase its malleability, is placed on the lower of a pair of dies. The upper die is then gradually forced down against the ingot, and the metal flows to fill both dies and form the intended shape. In this way, extremely complex structures can be created quickly and with minimal waste.

What sets the Fifty apart is its extraordinary scale. Its 14 major structural components, cast in ductile iron, weigh as much as 250 tons each; those yard-thick steel bolts are also 78 feet long; all told, the machine weighs 16 million pounds, and when activated its eight main hydraulic cylinders deliver up to 50,000 tons of compressive force. If the logistics could somehow be worked out, the Fifty could bench-press the battleship Iowa, with 860 tons to spare.

It is this power, combined with amazing precision—its tolerances are measured in thousandths of an inch—that gives the Fifty its far-reaching utility. It has made essential parts for industrial gas turbines, helicopters, and spacecraft. Every manned U.S. military aircraft now flying uses parts forged by the Fifty. So does every commercial aircraft made by Airbus and Boeing.

The Fifty began its work in 1955, but its history goes back to 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to relinquish some of its principal iron-producing regions but allowed it to keep its abundant magnesium reserves. Strong and lightweight, the metal also had one crucial drawback: it could not be worked by hammering, the way iron could. Smack iron, and it bends. Smack magnesium, and it cracks. So of necessity, German engineers developed a new technique for shaping the temperamental metal: press forging. Components made by German forges, using both magnesium and aluminum, helped build the Third Reich’s war machine. But at the end of that conflict, the Soviets took the most powerful forge home with them.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Rosie the Riveter was still piecing together components out of layers of heavy steel plate. Finding itself suddenly at a disadvantage to the Soviets, the U.S. government decided to do something frankly Soviet in nature: it ordered the construction of a series of massive forges and directed industry in their production and use. The now-forgotten Heavy Press Program, inaugurated in 1950 and completed in 1957, would ultimately result in 10 forges built with taxpayer dollars: four presses (including the Fifty) and six extruders—giant toothpaste tubes squeezing out long, complex metal structures such as wing ribs and missile bodies.

At least eight of the forges are still working today. The Fifty will soon be supplying bulkheads for the Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. military’s next-generation workhorse. Planned production of the plane extends to at least 2034, when the Fifty will be 79 years old. Alcoa expects it to keep working for at least 30 years beyond that.

[Timothy Miller]

Thanks for posting what a neat machine.

[Rich Hale]

I lot of things in my lie have impressed me,,,this is right at the top..thanks

[Sask Mark]

There's a good thread with a lot of information on this machine going on over at Blacksmith.org: http://blacksmith.org/forums/threads/1890-Iron-Giant....-50K-ton-press-back-in-service

[Dogsoldat]

That is just...inspiring, things just aren't made like that anymore. Thanks for posting

[Elemental Metal Creations]

Awsome

[GMoore]

I think it's a bit too large to fit through my shop door.

[Randy]

Plus there's almost as much underground as there is above!

http://files.asme.org/ASMEORG/Communities/History/Landmarks/5488.pdf

[territorialmillworks]

When I showed this to my wife, she all too quickly said "no", you can't have one.

[Old N Rusty]

I want...need ...gotta have one..."no " the wife says.

[HWHII]

It is magnificentt machine. Thanks for posting the photos. It is to bad so many of this countries heavy machines have gone to the scrap yard.

[2Tim215]

wonder if that would fit in my workshop

[SmoothBore]

Plus there's almost as much underground as there is above!

Yep.

Twenty-plus years ago, I consulted on a project, where a 2 story deep foundation was being prepared, to accomodate a very large Forge Press.

I don't remember the tonnage, but I do remember that the proposed part was a 1 piece "Forged Aluminum Turret", to replace the 7' diameter, welded and fabricated version, that was being used on Military Tanks, of that era.

I think they were "Abrams Tanks", ... but don't totally trust my memory, on that point.



.

[Jeddly]

I wonder what the power consumption of that monster is!

[mcostello]

You probobaly notice the power consumption when your lights go dim!:)

[beth]

fantastic when tools like this are saved, incredible :)

[Francis Trez Cole]

they do not make them like that anymore

[CurlyGeorge]

Incredible!!! Glad to see it is being saved. Thanks for posting it, Jesse. :)

[Chad J]

That is so Awesome!!!

and like others, my sweetie said no also. :(

[Tim McCoy]

Makes one wonder what is being done lately that is equal - thanks for the posting!!

[Borntoolate]

Rusty, you got the space. Go for it. Don't tell the wife. Shhhh everbody.

If he gets one I bet he'll let me use it....

[dlpierson]

Wonderful machine. I'm so glad it's still working and being used.

wonder if that would fit in my workshop

I wonder if your workshop would fit in it :)

[Smokin' Coke Forge]

Holy Smokes!!! My wife said that I could have one if I was able to get it home in the back of my truck! Time for a bigger truck! (She said no to that) :^(

[Old N Rusty]

Homie , if you pay the utilities to run it. I just might .".No way" she say!

[Winston]

If you look at the historic presentation someone posted a link to, it seems like it would take a machine the size of its self just to make it. How did they make the pieces back then?