Metallurgy Class Field Trip

[tanglediver]

While I was going to school for welding, our metallurgy class took a tour of a local steel mill to see how concrete re-enforcing bar is made from scrap. Our instructor spent a very long time to get permission from TAMCO for our benefit, and we were all very impressed by the sheer size of everything. This was some number of years ago, I re-edited my photos into a new video with just a few captions. I hope you enjoy.

 

[Donniev]

I was sent out to help with some welding at a plant that pours steel beams a couple years ago. It was really cool seeing how everything worked, but man I'd come home dirty, soot was everywhere

[ThomasPowers]

The MOB once toured a steel casting company that used electric Arc furnaces, 16" diameter graphite electrodes IIRC, 3 per furnace. The tour was in the middle of the night as that's when electricity is cheaper; the dials were calibrated in the *thousands* of amps....Noisy too.

The factory had been there since the civil war and their "storage" building was very impressive---I had to point out to my train mad friend that there was actually a locomotive *inside* the building and barely visible amongst the scrapped/stored equipment...

[Crytin]

 I currently work as Maintenance in an Aluminum foundry that makes cast aluminum engine heads for a major car company. The process to come out with a good usable casting is pretty complex, especially on the scale that we do. We utilize steel dies to create the outside mold and a sand/chemical mixture to create the necessary voids. We use a with 5 60 amp heaters to keep the aluminum molten. and water to ensure the aluminum solidifies at the proper rate to ensure a solid casting. there's ALOT more that goes on and I can go into further detail if anyone needs but we strictly deal with aluminum, so I have no experience with steel, though I'm sure some of the process is the same, depending on the scale of the steel being cast.

[JHCC]

5 hours ago, Crytin said:

 I currently work as Maintenance in an Aluminum foundry that makes cast aluminum engine heads for a major car company. The process to come out with a good usable casting is pretty complex, especially on the scale that we do. We utilize steel dies to create the outside mold and a sand/chemical mixture to create the necessary voids. We use a with 5 60 amp heaters to keep the aluminum molten. and water to ensure the aluminum solidifies at the proper rate to ensure a solid casting. there's ALOT more that goes on and I can go into further detail if anyone needs but we strictly deal with aluminum, so I have no experience with steel, though I'm sure some of the process is the same, depending on the scale of the steel being cast.

Speaking of Aluminum, the college where I work has as one of its alumni the fellow who developed the electrolytic process for extracting aluminum from bauxite, making aluminum production commercially viable.