An Ohio-based supplier of engineered steel components for multiple applications has recently begun construction on a facility that will manufacture a material other than steel: aluminum.
Ellwood Group Inc, which manufactures steel for the energy, aerospace, automotive and general manufacturing industries is building a new aluminum casting facility at its Ellwood Engineered Castings site in Hubbard, Ohio.
A leading industrial gases company recently announced plans to build a new liquid hydrogen plant to produce approximately 30 tons per day at its La Porte, Texas, industrial gas facility to meet increasing product demand from several customer markets, including industries which provide heat treatment.
Global hydrogen provider Air Products will draw hydrogen for the liquid hydrogen plant from Air Products’ existing Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline system network and is to be onstream in 2021.
“The investment in this new liquid hydrogen production facility in Texas will assist with meeting current customer demand, as well as capture the increased growth that we see coming from several markets,” said Marie Ffolkes, president, Americas at Air Products. “Logistically, our La Porte plant has several operational benefits which make the site selection for this new facility a good choice. We are confident with this additional capacity that we will be able to meet the projected growing liquid hydrogen needs coming from the varied industries in the United States for which a reliable source of this product is vitally important to our customers’ manufacturing operations.”.
Once liquefied at La Porte, the hydrogen will be delivered in trailers to customers in industries which provide heat treatment as well as several others including electronics, chemical and petrochemical, material handling, float glass, edible fats and oils, and utilities.
The new facility at La Porte will join Air Products’ existing hydrogen and syngas production operations, as well as an air separation unit. The liquid hydrogen plant will be connected to, and draw hydrogen from, Air Products’ Gulf Coast Pipeline (GCP), the world’s largest hydrogen plant and pipeline network system. The 600-mile pipeline span stretches from the Houston Ship Channel in Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana, and supplies customers with over 1.4 billion feet of hydrogen per day from 23 hydrogen production facilities.
Photo credit: Air Products. Caption: Air Products employee practices checking a pipeline valve for leaks at the company’s training site in La Porte, Tex.
A leading integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recently announced plans to make significant upgrades to its works plant in Gary, Indiana.
David B. Burritt, president and CEO of United States Steel Corporation
U.S. Steel will apply a $750 million asset revitalization investment to the Gary Works plant to modernize and enhance the company’s flagship operation through building expansion and improvement, including the installation of new, state-of-the-art production equipment, machinery, and modernizing technology to meet customer demand in the automotive, energy and other industries.
“We are pleased to be making this significant investment at Gary Works, which will improve the facility’s environmental performance, bolster our competitiveness and benefit the local community for years to come,” said David B. Burritt, president and CEO of United States Steel Corporation. “Through the skill and determination of our employees, support from the state and city, without which this project would not be possible, and favorable trade policies with the strong Section 232 national security action on steel imports, we are experiencing a renaissance at U. S. Steel.”
Burritt was joined by Indiana Governor Eric J. Holcomb and Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson in the announcement.
Providing both steelmaking and finishing capabilities, Gary Works is U. S. Steel’s largest manufacturing plant and the largest integrated steel mill in North America.
A steel manufacturer with operating facilities throughout the U.S. and Canada recently announced plans to expand the production capability of its flat-rolled sheet steel mill located in Ghent, Kentucky.
John Ferriola, Chairman, CEO & President of Nucor
Nucor Corporation’s Board of Directors approved an investment of $650 million to increase the production capability from 1,600,000 tons to approximately 3,000,000 tons annually and will increase the maximum coil width to approximately 73 inches. The project is expected to create 70 full-time jobs.
This expansion supports the current construction of a hot band continuous pickle galvanizing line at Nucor Steel Gallatin. The pickle galvanizing line is expected to be operational in the first half of 2019 and will produce approximately 500,000 tons per year of galvanized hot band steel. Nucor continues to evaluate additional expansion projects as part of the company’s initiative to further grow its sheet business.
“This investment is another major component of our planned strategy for long-term profitable growth,” said John Ferriola, Chairman, CEO & President of Nucor. “Together with the new galvanizing line, this expansion increases our presence in the important Midwest market, specifically in the automotive, agriculture, heavy equipment, and energy pipe and tube sectors.” Nucor acquired the former Gallatin Steel Company in late 2014 for a purchase price of approximately $780 million.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced the selection of 13 projects to stimulate the use of high-performance supercomputers to advance U.S. manufacturing. Heat treating research and development programs are among the finalists.
The Energy Department, in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has set aside nearly $3 million in funding for the manufacturing-laboratory partnerships to assist the U.S. in bringing technologies to the market faster and gain a competitive advantage in the global economy.
Included in the list are heat treating or metals production companies with the following planned projects:
United Technologies Research Center – This project will develop a novel heat treatment scheme that eliminates deleterious phases from the microstructure additively manufactured aerospace components while reducing the annealing time.
SFP Works, LLC – This project will use computational effort to understand phase transformations that occur during the flash heat treating process in order to better control parameters to obtain the desired phase distribution and chemistry.
Arconic, Inc – This project will study the thermomechanics of micro-pores during the rolling process of aluminum slabs to improve yield.
Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium – This project will create a shared database of heat exchange in 140 steel reheat furnaces whose inconsistencies lead to significant energy loss.
Selected projects will be awarded up to $300,000 in federal funding to cover the costs associated with using the supercomputers and technical expertise provided by the laboratory partners. Industry partners will provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the DOE funding for the project.
DOE’s national laboratories have some of the most significant high performance computing (HPC) resources available, including some of the fastest supercomputers in the world. There is great potential for the U.S. manufacturing industry to use the power of HPC to solve key challenges, but many manufacturers lack access to supercomputing resources.
The High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) program, supported by DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, unites DOE’s supercomputing capabilities and expertise with American manufacturers to optimize production processes and designs, enhance product quality, predict performance and failure, and speed up design and testing cycles while decreasing energy consumption. Manufacturer-laboratory partnerships leverage expertise in advanced modeling, simulation, and data analysis to accelerate innovation and shorten the time of adoption of new technologies in U.S. manufacturing.
The following projects were also selected for awards:
3M – This project will optimize the design of emissive films on building windows for cooling via modeling of glass bead filled polymers.
3M – This project will minimize energy consumption of the fiber spinning manufacturing process using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and machine learning.
Alliance for Pulp & Paper Technology – This project will help create a fundamental understanding of alkali reactivity with wood components using molecular modeling.
GE Global Research Center – This project will extend GE Global Research Center’s TRUCHAS model to large-scale casting simulation of turbine blades.
KeraCel – This project will model a new plan to push energy density in Li batteries with lithium oxide garnet with the goal of lowering the required temperature to reduce porosity in sintering.
Seurat Technologies – This project will use the ALE3D software to optimize Seurat’s innovative laser energy flux distribution to reduce spatter during laser powder bed fusion.
The Dow Chemical Company – This project will model methods to reduce the thermal conductivity of Dow’s insulating foam polyurethane products while using less polymer in products.
Transient Plasma Systems – This project will build a comprehensive numerical model for use in understanding and optimizing key parameters in electrical pulse generation of plasmas for dilute burn combustion.
VAST Power Systems, Inc. – This project will optimize gas turbine combustors by developing and validating surrogate models using CFD.
Read more about the individual projects on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing website and at the Department of Energy’s website.
A Lansing, Michigan-based heat treating provider recently announced that it is increasing oil quench and temper capacity at its Atmosphere Annealing Mt. Hope Facility in Lansing, Michigan. Through the enhancement of an existing roller hearth tray furnace, the facility will double its oil quench capacity.
Sara McMurray, Director of Sales and Marketing, Premier Thermal Solutions
Premier Thermal Solutions, which operates through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Atmosphere Annealing and NitroSteel, reported that the additional capacity will allow Atmosphere Annealing to better serve its client industries, including automotive, energy, heavy equipment, heavy truck, and rail. The furnace will be online in Q1 of 2019.
“This is a really exciting time for our organization. With the conversion of this furnace, we will be able to react quickly to market needs, expand into new markets, and provide faster turnaround for our customers,” said Sara McMurray, Director of Sales and Marketing.
Steve Wyatt, president, Premier Thermal Solutions
“The expansion not only provides us with additional capacity to meet our customers growing demand, it also provides additional backup processing capabilities to further protect our customers’ critical supply chain,” said Steve Wyatt, President.
Premier Thermal Solutions operates plants in Lansing, Michigan, Canton, Ohio, North Vernon, Indiana, and Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.
A leading manufacturer of magnesium dissolvable metals and dissolvable elastomers recently broke ground on a 12,000 sq. ft. expansion to its magnesium foundry, which will increase its metal processing, heat treatment, machining, and storage capabilities.
Andrew Sherman, CEO of Terves
Terves Inc announced that the H3-classified magnesium metal processing facility at its site in Euclid, Ohio, will include additional permanent mold and materials handling and storage space, and the addition of sand casting, squeeze casting, and diecasting capabilities for custom magnesium and magnesium alloys and composites, and allows for further expansion of build-to-print component CNC machining services. These additions enable the company to support aerospace and defense magnesium applications in addition to Terves’ leading position in the dissolvable oilfield tool market.
“Dissolvable Metals are the New Composites as far as oilfield tools are concerned,” said Andrew Sherman, CEO of Terves. “Oilfield tools made from composite materials were adopted in the industry about two decades ago and today occupy a sizable market share. We are seeing a major adoption and growth trajectory for oilfield tools made from dissolvable magnesium materials. At the end of 2017, roughly 2% of all frac plugs deployed in the field were being made using dissolvable metals and the market is expected to grow to 5% of all frac plugs deployed in the field by the end of 2018 – a 250% growth in one year, with adoption and use increasing through 2025.”
Terves products are used for making frac balls, plugs, slips, seals and several other components used in oil and gas well completion and production and have been used for completing tens of thousands of stages in North America, Europe, South America, Asia, and MENA regions.
Craig C. Bram, president and CEO of Synalloy Corporation
A metal pipe manufacturer recently completed the acquisition of the U.S. stainless steel pipe and galvanized tube operations of an Italian steel processing group, making the combined business the largest domestic producer of welded stainless steel pipe and mechanical tube in North America.
Bristol Metals, LLC, a subsidiary of Synalloy Corporation, purchased the galvanized tube manufacturing equipment and inventory assets of Marcegaglia USA, which includes the company’s facility in Munhall, Pennsylvania. The new business will operate under the name of Bristol Metals.
“We expect the addition of this business to be as incrementally positive to Bristol Metals’ financial results as was our initial transaction with Marcegaglia,” said Craig C. Bram, president and CEO of Synalloy Corporation.
Kyle Pennington, President of Synalloy Metals
“Our sales team is very familiar with the end markets and customers for these product lines and they look forward to taking this business to the next level,” said Kyle Pennington, President of Synalloy Metals. “This is a natural product line extension for Bristol Metals.”
The leading provider of heat treatment and specialist thermal processing services recently announced the opening of its newest facility to support the power generation and aerospace industries in the UK and Europe.
Located in the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham, Yorkshire, the state-of-the-art plant will be fully operational in 2018 and offer a number of heat treatment processes. Additionally, Bodycote reports that major OEM approvals will be secured along with Nadcap accreditation.
“This investment demonstrates Bodycote’s continuing commitment to align resources to serve both the aerospace and power generation markets,” said Simon Blantern, vice president of Sales Europe for Bodycote’s Aerospace, Defence & Energy heat treatment division.
A heat treating process surfaces as one of the most effective methods to prolong the lifespan of wind turbine components. Turbine shaft bearings, planetary gears, and rotating shafts operate under extreme conditions, and the demand for taller and larger wind turbines limit the options available to manufacturers and operators seeking protection against wind, weather, fatigue, and overall wear and tear.
Plasma nitriding was recently found in tests to exhibit “one-fifth the roundness deviation and seven times better planarity than gas nitriding on a two-meter diameter ring gear,” said Dr. Florian Rovere of Oerlikon Balzers, a supplier of surface technologies for metal processing industries in North America.
“Plasma nitriding has the advantage of making the treatment more precise by minimizing warping and distortion while providing a higher load-bearing capacity,” notes an article published in Windpower Engineering & Development.
“It is . . . an important discovery for the service life of a system where enormous forces are at work,” said Rovere.
