In the early 80s, I worked at Canadian Steel Wheel (CSW) in Montreal, a train wheel factory. Our rear neighbor was the Canadian Steel Foundry (CSF) plant, both part of Hawker Siddeley Canada. Our train wheel plant having a larger foundry capacity (2 electric furnaces of 90 tons each), we frequently transferred buckets of molten steel by train to our sister plant, which, among other things, manufactured huge hydraulic turbines. But during a transfer, a cable from the crane maneuvering the molten steel bucket broke, spilling the contents of the bucket onto the train car specially designed for this type of transfer. Once all that steel had hardened into a solid plate, everything nearby was imprisoned, including the wagon and the rails. Once everything had cooled, a specialized team came to cut all this steel, then remelt it in the furnaces. Fortunately, no one was injured, largely because of the mandatory security perimeter during such manipulations.
I remember the first time I saw a charge go in the furnace (similar sized), I was in awe. Then after time passed it was 'run of the mill' so to speak! Until the day a gas cylinder of some sort made it through in the scrap and was dropped in during the 3rd melt, the electrodes were in so the roof was on, by god I jumped out of my skin. I wasn't stood really close, probably 50-60 ft away - I remember the guys close by nonchalantly took a look as the dust and debris from the roof poured down.
I saw an aerosol can get into the charge bucket at an iron foundry and that was memorable. I can't imagine something as big as a filled gas cylinder. The guys on the melt deck used to toss paper airplanes across the open furnaces for giggles, and they would catch fire and float down onto the shop floor.
This furnace runs around 110MW at peak power. At 1,100 volts, it will pull anywhere from 60,000 - 80,000 amps. About the same amount of power consumed by 5,000 average homes. The noise and fire and explosions are perfectly normal. It does not smell really bad, smells like money.
silly question: Do they preheat the furnace before they start melting the metal? Is that a probe (look like a pole being inserted vertically) going into the furnace after they drop the scrap some sort of electrode? Having no idea what Im looking at, Im assuming the metal is melted by a current being applied directly to it or is it some sort of ambient heat in the furnace itself? Thats a lot of power so Im assuming they apply the current directly to the scrap?
I have same question, but safe to assume that it is the charged electrode that is causing the explosion as it nears the and makes contact with the metal.
After 200 tons of steel is poured into a ladle, there is still 140 tons of melted steel left in ours called the heel. New scrap is put in, then a graphite electrode lowers into the scrap and auto regulates the distance of the arc. 4 oxygen burners also help in the furnace and inject oxygen into the bath.
@@ericperu1542 melting occurs three ways. 1. Electrical arc from the electrodes you saw inserting from the roof. 2. Natural gas burners mounted around the circumference of the furnace. 3. Chemical reactions between oxygen, calcium carbonate, carbon, and the steel. It’s not preheated, but once hot remains hot for quite a while.
@@GoogleGoogle-yl4jb bellowing toxic smoke, gigantic explosions as the electrodes make contact, the people just standing around as if trapped water or gas couldn't expand do 2000x volume in a split second...
1:43 THE GREAT OZ HAS SPOOKEN! lol its a ton of fire, and certainly a spectacular display of fire and smoke as it is charged with the unmelted steel and iron,certainly more then enough to light a cigar off of.
I think the melter was checking the tap hole. Business ain't what it used to be - I guess they can afford to take a little time between charges. That sparking out the front is from the electrode arcing through the lid via scrap.
Rebuilt Gearbox - I worked in biomass boilers for a while, and I couldn't agree more. Haha Gotta wear a tyvec suit and a full face just to walk in the fucking place! haha
Gotta be better than old Coke and Sulphur smelling mills out east. We have a big one down in Fort Smith that makes bar out of an EAF. They've started running in the middle of the night and storing charges during the day to make use and savings of off peak power loads.
My Grandfather drove the electric crane at Jessops Sheffield 1875: that's modern for you! Tipping 20 tons of molten steel. His brother went to America: lost his legs trying to save a fellow furnaceman: no compensation: "It wasn't his responsibility".
@gkorakali - Rule of thumb is 1 MVA per metric ton. That's about 1 MW, depending on your power factor. A5 US ton DC furnace would be set up with about a 4 MW DC transformer, for example. That's a tiny furnace by modern standards - for a foundry?
So I am just wondering, over time does all the stuff splashing out add up? If so how the hell do you clean up the steel that had cooled down and hard ended after splashing all over everything?
Not much molten steel splashes out. The crews are pretty much cleaning or blowing off the deck everyday to eliminate settled dust and small debris ejected from the furnace.
We have timken steel mill here in canton ohio I work at,our furnace take two 80 ton cups to fill and uses 3 electrodes. Cost about 3 million dollars a month to run the furnace.
@steelboss337 - I've not been getting so many calls from clients this last year - most shops aren't pushing their production limits these days. Still, I notice that you have some residual charging fume on the far side of the EAF as you start to bore down... Man, I do miss observing charging, and checking the canopy evacuation...
what if their only job they can do is related to the furnace going, and it isn't going yet because it's being charged? if there's nothing else you can do what can you do except stand about?
I've seen videos on TH-cam of wet scrap being charged into an EAF. You would think a bomb went off inside the furnace! Sparks and hot metal (molten metal!) splatter everywhere! You keep a discreet distance from the furnace! Safety first!
That is what it sounds like when it add a lightning bolt to steel scrap. Once you see it you wont forget it. I worked in a melt shop for a year as an engineering intern. Adding a few bags of manganese to a ladle of steel was always impressive.
Why so slow? Man if i charged our furnace that slow i would be very unpopular on our crew. Besides a good booming charge is half the fun of working in a melt shop. In our plant the Furnace Utility would have to sweep it up.... the Second helper only cleans the back porch.
The electric arcs jumping between the bigger pieces of scrap in there. It settles down after a while as the individual pieces melt together and conduct the current more uniformly.
TEPCO making another futile attempt at quenching FUKUSHIMA 4 while onlookers stand idol. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
sharing admiration for the process, teaching, and showing customers is not "hanging around" or bad.... there is a virtuous measure... you should be more concerned with the consequences of your cheap self validation at the cost of industry and peoples lives.... you were trained to say what you said.. .by examples who themselves never represented an honest day or a stable future for anyone.... best to be of good will.
Steel was my life for 25 years I still miss it the sounds and the heat and hard work 😓
David Shaw I think a storytelling video of times in the steel mill would get at least 1,000 views.
worked in steel foundry 11 plus years nothing like hearing those electrodes comming down
Amen brother 31.5 year's in a steel foundry for this ole duck
LT. Work 17 years Armco Steel Houston Texas , great people wonderful job.
I spent 10 years doing this in Irish Steel. Loved it and the people i worked with were the best. Happy days.
In the early 80s, I worked at Canadian Steel Wheel (CSW) in Montreal, a train wheel factory.
Our rear neighbor was the Canadian Steel Foundry (CSF) plant, both part of Hawker Siddeley Canada.
Our train wheel plant having a larger foundry capacity (2 electric furnaces of 90 tons each),
we frequently transferred buckets of molten steel by train to our sister plant, which, among other things, manufactured huge hydraulic turbines.
But during a transfer, a cable from the crane maneuvering the molten steel bucket broke, spilling the contents of the bucket onto the train car specially designed for this type of transfer.
Once all that steel had hardened into a solid plate, everything nearby was imprisoned, including the wagon and the rails.
Once everything had cooled, a specialized team came to cut all this steel, then remelt it in the furnaces.
Fortunately, no one was injured, largely because of the mandatory security perimeter during such manipulations.
I remember the first time I saw a charge go in the furnace (similar sized), I was in awe. Then after time passed it was 'run of the mill' so to speak! Until the day a gas cylinder of some sort made it through in the scrap and was dropped in during the 3rd melt, the electrodes were in so the roof was on, by god I jumped out of my skin. I wasn't stood really close, probably 50-60 ft away - I remember the guys close by nonchalantly took a look as the dust and debris from the roof poured down.
I saw an aerosol can get into the charge bucket at an iron foundry and that was memorable. I can't imagine something as big as a filled gas cylinder. The guys on the melt deck used to toss paper airplanes across the open furnaces for giggles, and they would catch fire and float down onto the shop floor.
It's like a scene out of a science fiction movie. I like the explosion at the end especially.
I put in 24 years as an overhead crane operator at Republic Steel at Youngstown, Warren, Canton and Massillon.
Massillon Ohio? I work in power plants,chemical plants,refineries and mills
10 years of hard graft in Irish Steel workin on an EAF. Great job with great people.
This furnace runs around 110MW at peak power.
At 1,100 volts, it will pull anywhere from 60,000 - 80,000 amps.
About the same amount of power consumed by 5,000 average homes.
The noise and fire and explosions are perfectly normal.
It does not smell really bad, smells like money.
id assume it smells like burning metal, sort of like what welding smells like except stronger
silly question: Do they preheat the furnace before they start melting the metal? Is that a probe (look like a pole being inserted vertically) going into the furnace after they drop the scrap some sort of electrode? Having no idea what Im looking at, Im assuming the metal is melted by a current being applied directly to it or is it some sort of ambient heat in the furnace itself? Thats a lot of power so Im assuming they apply the current directly to the scrap?
I have same question, but safe to assume that it is the charged electrode that is causing the explosion as it nears the and makes contact with the metal.
After 200 tons of steel is poured into a ladle, there is still 140 tons of melted steel left in ours called the heel. New scrap is put in, then a graphite electrode lowers into the scrap and auto regulates the distance of the arc. 4 oxygen burners also help in the furnace and inject oxygen into the bath.
@@ericperu1542 melting occurs three ways.
1. Electrical arc from the electrodes you saw inserting from the roof.
2. Natural gas burners mounted around the circumference of the furnace.
3. Chemical reactions between oxygen, calcium carbonate, carbon, and the steel.
It’s not preheated, but once hot remains hot for quite a while.
I find this very fascinating to see stell that can be a tube or rail piece getiing fed to this furnace and then it just melts away into a liquid :)
Watching EAF in operation is one of the top five most frightening things I’ve ever seen.
Been here many times ! Nothing like this job ! Loved it ! Wish I could go back today ! 👍✌
The steel mill sunrise !
when I watch these videos I feel like safety concerns is not something the steel industry is familiar with...
?????
@@GoogleGoogle-yl4jb bellowing toxic smoke, gigantic explosions as the electrodes make contact, the people just standing around as if trapped water or gas couldn't expand do 2000x volume in a split second...
i love this video charging the furnace EAF good job
I'm over here in 🇦🇺, but I still love listening to Allen Town. The industry in general, throughout the world is the backbone of most economies. ❤✌👋
Great video. nice furnace.
1:43 THE GREAT OZ HAS SPOOKEN! lol its a ton of fire, and certainly a spectacular display of fire and smoke as it is charged with the unmelted steel and iron,certainly more then enough to light a cigar off of.
That's alot of angry pixies
I think the melter was checking the tap hole.
Business ain't what it used to be - I guess they can afford to take a little time between charges.
That sparking out the front is from the electrode arcing through the lid via scrap.
1 hell of a furnace!!!
After being in the automotive technician side for Mopar, I just started for CMC steel.. this makes me excited.
Did you quit yet
@chemech OK, most of the low level fume after bore-down got dragged over there by the crane, then started to cool off and drop...
I never realized how dirty the mills I worked at were until I saw this. That place looks like a kitchen by comparison.
Rebuilt Gearbox - I worked in biomass boilers for a while, and I couldn't agree more. Haha Gotta wear a tyvec suit and a full face just to walk in the fucking place! haha
Gotta be better than old Coke and Sulphur smelling mills out east. We have a big one down in Fort Smith that makes bar out of an EAF. They've started running in the middle of the night and storing charges during the day to make use and savings of off peak power loads.
Why is the basket on a lifting beam when the crane has what I can only assume to be a ladle hoist behind it? Do you charge and tap in the same bay?
yes sir you have to see what open hearth, blast furnaces were like.
Yeah it's the charge siren.
What size of graphite electrodes do they use there?
My Grandfather drove the electric crane at Jessops Sheffield 1875: that's modern for you! Tipping 20 tons of molten steel. His brother went to America: lost his legs trying to save a fellow furnaceman: no compensation: "It wasn't his responsibility".
@gkorakali - Rule of thumb is 1 MVA per metric ton. That's about 1 MW, depending on your power factor.
A5 US ton DC furnace would be set up with about a 4 MW DC transformer, for example.
That's a tiny furnace by modern standards - for a foundry?
So I am just wondering, over time does all the stuff splashing out add up? If so how the hell do you clean up the steel that had cooled down and hard ended after splashing all over everything?
Not much molten steel splashes out.
The crews are pretty much cleaning or blowing off the deck everyday to eliminate settled dust and small debris ejected from the furnace.
clever and yet very safe
Nothing is quite as fun as a ductal iron charge now thats a sight (actually chances are if you watch that you will have no sight left)
We have timken steel mill here in canton ohio I work at,our furnace take two 80 ton cups to fill and uses 3 electrodes. Cost about 3 million dollars a month to run the furnace.
Harrison ave or Faircrest?
Are you all are charging the Furness or blasting the Furness??????¿¿¿¿
That doesnt happen to be a Gerdau Plant by chance? I work for Gerdau Macsteel in Michigan and I know theres a plant in Ft Smith
how much power needed for a small 3-5 ton arc furnace??
Normally I'm not a fan of putting a video like this to music, but in this case I can't seem to shake off "Fire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
at one steel mill in NW Indiana the President started out sweeping floors.
I only see a single electrode = DC furnace perhaps?
I was a meltor for ArcelorMittal in Indiana. Probably the worst jobs I ever had.
@homebrainbox - Just what I was thinking. The bucket should be almost pushing the roof of of the EAF...
@steelboss337 - I've not been getting so many calls from clients this last year - most shops aren't pushing their production limits these days. Still, I notice that you have some residual charging fume on the far side of the EAF as you start to bore down...
Man, I do miss observing charging, and checking the canopy evacuation...
Why are all these guys standing around when they are charging. Their asses are gone if its a wet charge,
obviously u have never been in a EAF melt shop... why is the crane operator waiting so long to drop ? ? ?
@Justin Braden yes it is gerdau fort smith
probably a stupid question but is that siren going off because the charge is being added to the furnace or is it just background noise?
siren goes off when stuff carrys by crane is moving and or hot molten steel is moving too
Where's this?
it amazes me the amount of energy used to run this furnace, how much does it cost to run it once?
It can be $5,000 US. The place I interned at hod a phone line to the power plant so they knew when they had sufficient electricity to charge furnaces.
nice....
Nice
is this lieapaja?
110MW for only one machine!!!! I hate to pay the power bill. Is that about $35,000 for a 10 hour day?
No, AC. (3 electrodes)
Lerner mill- inexperience mill. notice how nobody seems to recognize an eaf cross arc and it’s potential dangers 2:39
I'm getting a job at the steel mill.
the people standing there would be a big no no at my work
what if their only job they can do is related to the furnace going, and it isn't going yet because it's being charged? if there's nothing else you can do what can you do except stand about?
tall32guy he means the distance from the furnace. Smart arse !
Yeah, if something went wrong with people so close to it... they arnt to close, but possibly close enough to get burnt badly if an accident occurred
that was your job a mold explode you stand there
I've seen videos on TH-cam of wet scrap being charged into an EAF. You would think a bomb went off inside the furnace! Sparks and hot metal (molten metal!) splatter everywhere! You keep a discreet distance from the furnace! Safety first!
Is this by chance a DC furnace?
no its ac
@gkorakali mate u need 3MW :)
no point of making furnaces which can recieve less than 60tons
what is that sudden arc outside the furnace??? what happened? it seemed to be high voltage arc
Eduard Ritok That is a flash of light
wow! hot hot is that furnace?
2:38 thought a stick broke ... maybe just a skull...
Possibly. Or maybe the scrap shifted some, possibly mis-layered.
Is that a Konecranes charging crane? How many tons?
80
I guess they don't have rcd's on those...
My day is also a crane driver
Recharge!!!
whats happened at 2:38 ?
+StakrCZ The temperature remains to melt the metal is created by electrodes. That's why there are several flashes from the furnace.
And our furnace gets.to about 9000 degrees f
Is that normal at 2:33?
I can just imagine the SMELL!
That is what it sounds like when it add a lightning bolt to steel scrap. Once you see it you wont forget it. I worked in a melt shop for a year as an engineering intern. Adding a few bags of manganese to a ladle of steel was always impressive.
LT no smell not a problem at all, I did 17 years as a steel worker, best job I ever had
Why so slow? Man if i charged our furnace that slow i would be very unpopular on our crew. Besides a good booming charge is half the fun of working in a melt shop. In our plant the Furnace Utility would have to sweep it up.... the Second helper only cleans the back porch.
Those arc furnaces are freaky, how can you tell an accident from normal operation.
Sound & gages, Meters ....cut it Don't take long to know something Wrong !
What are all the explosions at 2:35?
The electric arcs jumping between the bigger pieces of scrap in there. It settles down after a while as the individual pieces melt together and conduct the current more uniformly.
🎉🎉
My ex had a cousin that got electrocuted at an arc furnace! Lost both of his arms.
Well i know i aint ever taking a job there
I bet that would give you a nasty shock if you accidentally grasped the electrode.
I bet it would hurt if you fell into the molten steel?
killuminati63 I'm guessing second and third degree burns minimum!
marc80s there would be nothing left of you.
marc80s you would be fired extra crispy in less than a heart beat
Vapor you would become lol
Dang, electricity gives no f*cks!
2:35 I don't see any eye protection. Enjoy your photokeratitis.
TEPCO making another futile attempt at quenching FUKUSHIMA 4 while onlookers stand idol.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Lol
Too many white hats hanging around!
Non Union mill.
sharing admiration for the process, teaching, and showing customers is not "hanging around" or bad.... there is a virtuous measure... you should be more concerned with the consequences of your cheap self validation at the cost of industry and peoples lives.... you were trained to say what you said.. .by examples who themselves never represented an honest day or a stable future for anyone.... best to be of good will.
Christopher Birkbeck Ata boy! 😊