Press light alloys for every aircraft ever since WW2. The Americans discovered that Germans were able to build better airplanes because of die forging presses like this (larger pressed metal pieces spanning the whole fuselage, instead of smaller pieces and more rivets)[1].
So the Air Force initiated the press program, leading to this thing. It's on the list of mechanical engineering landmarks[2] and it's my dream to see it one day.
>For very large Generation III+ reactors, production of the pressure vessel requires, or is best undertaken by, forging presses of about 140-150 MN (14-15,000 tonnes) capacity which accept hot steel ingots of 500-600 tonnes. These are not common, and individual large presses do not have high throughput – about four pressure vessels per year appears to be common at present, fitted in with other work, though the potential is greater than this. Westinghouse was constrained as of 2009 in that the AP1000 pressure vessel closure head and three complex steam generator parts could only be made by JSW. Areva has a little more choice.
And then people wonder why nuclear power is so expensive... It's because the machines that are necessary to build your humongous power plants were built 50 years ago and have already been closed down or assigned to other jobs. The manufacturing industry behind nuclear power has deteriorated and the rebuilding of it is what's so expensive. When you are building your first few power plants you spend most of your time and money on specialty manufacturing hoping to squeeze in your order in-between the usual business. Corruption is usually visible through an inflated workforce. That workforce gets paid even if they do nothing because of manufacturing delays.
The idea of a monolithic nuclear power plant is flawed. You build a fleet of 30 of them all at once and then let them and their supporting manufacturing base decay for 50 years. Then you suddenly notice your old power plant is unsafe but you have to "keep quiet" or your profits will go down. Hope it keeps running until it reaches end of life but then something like Fukushima happens. Finally it is time to rebuild your fleet but since everyone who knows how to build nuclear plants is gone you're forced to start from scratch but just because your own industry has declined doesn't mean everyone else has stood still. Advancements with other technologies have been discovered and are only making business as usual harder to swallow. It would be better to do away with these large presses and build smaller reactors in higher quantities.
It seems this and other similar large machinery were built in the 1950s as part of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program. This article notes they’ve since been surpassed by larger presses internationally, but presumably remain the largest in the US.
While there is some manufacturing innovation coming out of Tesla, with their planned creation of the world’s largest casting machine (https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/12939230581099601...), it is disappointing to think that America’s best manufacturing days might be behind it. I wonder how hard it would be to remake the entire supply chain to be able to build big things again.
I don't know whether such things can or can't be made anymore, but it sure is fascinating to see how certain giant machines are almost strategic national assets, and compare when they were built. NIST deadweight machine seems like another thing in this class:
And here's a video of another 50K Ton press in action. It shows the chunk of steel before and after pressing. I can't really wrap my mind around the forces involved here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LpxWvkvAY8
Last week there was a post that reached the front page urging people to obtain "industrial literacy". (1)
I would consider both this and another current front page topic (2) to be much better examples of industrial literacy -- understanding where our modern lifestyle comes from -- than were in that post!
All expertise outsourced by management in collusion with politicians to stuff their pockets and grease the palms of politicians kids.
“ It's a big club, and you ain't in it.” - George Carlin
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] threadSo the Air Force initiated the press program, leading to this thing. It's on the list of mechanical engineering landmarks[2] and it's my dream to see it one day.
People don't know how important this thing is.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Historic_Mechanical_En...
I wish the Wikipedia article made that clearer.
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2012/02/alcoas_50000-ton_... (see useful diagram in this page on how the pressing process works. It also notes that the press makes parts of the F-35)
https://www.asme.org/wwwasmeorg/media/resourcefiles/aboutasm... (PDF of a past article by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, includes more technical details and older photos)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/iron-gi... (some historical details on what motivated the program)
>https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...
>For very large Generation III+ reactors, production of the pressure vessel requires, or is best undertaken by, forging presses of about 140-150 MN (14-15,000 tonnes) capacity which accept hot steel ingots of 500-600 tonnes. These are not common, and individual large presses do not have high throughput – about four pressure vessels per year appears to be common at present, fitted in with other work, though the potential is greater than this. Westinghouse was constrained as of 2009 in that the AP1000 pressure vessel closure head and three complex steam generator parts could only be made by JSW. Areva has a little more choice.
And then people wonder why nuclear power is so expensive... It's because the machines that are necessary to build your humongous power plants were built 50 years ago and have already been closed down or assigned to other jobs. The manufacturing industry behind nuclear power has deteriorated and the rebuilding of it is what's so expensive. When you are building your first few power plants you spend most of your time and money on specialty manufacturing hoping to squeeze in your order in-between the usual business. Corruption is usually visible through an inflated workforce. That workforce gets paid even if they do nothing because of manufacturing delays.
The idea of a monolithic nuclear power plant is flawed. You build a fleet of 30 of them all at once and then let them and their supporting manufacturing base decay for 50 years. Then you suddenly notice your old power plant is unsafe but you have to "keep quiet" or your profits will go down. Hope it keeps running until it reaches end of life but then something like Fukushima happens. Finally it is time to rebuild your fleet but since everyone who knows how to build nuclear plants is gone you're forced to start from scratch but just because your own industry has declined doesn't mean everyone else has stood still. Advancements with other technologies have been discovered and are only making business as usual harder to swallow. It would be better to do away with these large presses and build smaller reactors in higher quantities.
While there is some manufacturing innovation coming out of Tesla, with their planned creation of the world’s largest casting machine (https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/12939230581099601...), it is disappointing to think that America’s best manufacturing days might be behind it. I wonder how hard it would be to remake the entire supply chain to be able to build big things again.
https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2016/06/million-pound-...
8 out of the 10 heavy presses they built are still operational.
I would consider both this and another current front page topic (2) to be much better examples of industrial literacy -- understanding where our modern lifestyle comes from -- than were in that post!
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24646136
2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24683158
World's biggest press:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150210155349/http://www.chinat...