Rode to Grosse Ile this morning in the downriver area of Michigan here in the U.S. This is a heavy industrial area with steel production, auto assembly plants and large ore freighter shipping lanes in the Detroit River. There are several steel mills and a nuclear power plant to the south of there. A number of the steel mills are closed and abandoned- quite a spectacle with their empty, decayed, apocolyptic look. It is like riding in a sci fi movie.
Anyway.
This morning we are coming back up Biddle (Jefferson) at the intersection of Biddle and the Southfield Road where the Coney Island place is just on the river there. Behind that, on the river, farther north up Biddle is a huge steel plant. It is overcast and gray here tis morning, warm (55 degrees) but with light rain.
WE look acros the water and there is this enormous, I mean, like a train bax car or larger, cauldren of bright orange molten steel being poured. It is liquid fire, like a sun contained in this enormous vessel. This thing is pouring the steel into some kind of container and it looks like a huge volcano going off.
To say it was spectacular is a pale understatement. We all slowed down to watch the process. The light that came off of it was a huge, red/orange glow. It looked like the sun burning through the ground. Incredible. wha we wondered on the way home is why the thing they pour the steel from and into doesn’t just melt on contact. It has got to be well over 1,000 degrees fahrenheit.
It was an incredible spectacle, like a second, artificial sunrise. Absolutely amazing.
During the mid to late 80’s I actively raced sailboats on the Great Lakes. Many times we traveled the Detroit River between Lake Erie and Lake Huron, sometimes in the midlle of the night. I have seen this steel pouriing in the middle of the night and you would have thought it was daytime. An incredible sight.
Question - What is the container that holds liquid steel made of?
I don’t know the exact answer to this question, but I can present some
relevant facts. The melting point of steel (Fe) is 2500 F. Obviously
the container must melt at a higher temperature. Various metals and
alloys satisfy this condition:
wrought iron - 2750 F
Chromium - 2939 F
Cobalt - 2696 F
Iridium - 4260 F
Vanadium - 3128 F
Tungsten - 6152 F
I suspect it is made of some alloy of steel containing chromium. It
could also be made of steel lined with carbon.
Wow! Thanks! That’s cool. We had a debate on the ride and over breakfast about the temperature. I said I thought it was in excess of 1500 degrees fahrenheit.
Some of the guys on the ride, one a retired auto worker, said he thought there was a very fine line between the temperature of the molten steel and the point at which the vessel would fail. It looked like an incrediblely hazardous operation.
Bascially, they are trying to herness the sun or a volcano in a big metal bowl. Insane. Amazing.
The vessels that hold molten metals, are typically lined with various ceramic coatings or in the case of liquid steels and irons, usually bricks that have much higher melting points, and insulate the molten metal from the vessel.
I typically deal with Aluminum, which melts at a lower temp then Iron and steel so I can’t be much more specific.
Hmmmmm, did you submit this piece to the “Racism Police” for prior review? Last time you wrote about riding through an “empty, decayed” area you were accused of being a racist. You need a team of politically correct professionals to pre-screen your work, I think.
I was traveling last month in Seattle area and went to a Sand Caster to see their operation.
Basically they poor molten aluminum into molds made of sand to make parts.
I think they said it was around 1200F. Two guys with big laddles dipping into the aluminum and pooring it into the molds.
Personal opinion but anytime you can cut, make, or melt something as solid as metal is very impressive.
One of my many pre-college days jobs was working in a foundry. To give you some idea of the heat generated, I had to look to see if my pants were on fire because it was so hot I could not tell. We were pouring stainless steel at about 3400 degrees. Needless to say, there is no room for error when dealing with those temperatures. Many people got seriously burned due to mistakes. A side note, I was so dehydrated from the heat that I never pissed the whole time I worked there - 6 months.
“It is never too late to fix your childhood!” Tom Robbins
We do work for a company that does investment casting. A very cool process. They make a mold of wax, Then dip it into a slurry of a ceramic compound. Then pour a dry powder over it and repeat until a shell builds up. They then dry the shell. Then pour molten steel into the shell melting out the wax. After the steel cools down they crack the shell away and you have your casting.
The Really cool thing is their automated slurry department. They have 5-6 robotic arms that operate in multiple axis that dip the wax, spin it around to cover it in the dry powder and redip etc.
That’s on my “to do” list. Rather high on it in fact. I find myself in Hawaii for one thing or another about every two years and I always enjoy it. I would like to hit one of those helicopter tours that goes over the volcano when it is erupting.
For my friend’s birthday last year we got a little helicopter and went looking for sharks in the D.R. It was awesome. Here’s a photo from busting down the beach at over 100 mph.
One year I climbed El Pico de Orizaba in Mexico. It is an 18,000 foot dormant volcano that is pretty mild climb. The guys I was climbing with, including Ricardo Torres, the first Mexican to climb Everest, said the week prior they were climbing on Popocatpel (however you spell it) while the volcano was active. The park was closed but Ricardo, being somewhat of a personality in Mexico as the first Mexican to summit Everest, got a permit to go in the park. They said at one point that is was raining softball sized flaming rocks. When they landing in the snow they made loud popping and hissing sounds. One of the other guys on the climb, Brett from Colorado, said Ricardo just turned around and said, “Maybe we better go down…”
