How to build a 50k ton forging press
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How to build a 50k ton forging press
1–10 of 196 posts
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#2...and now the modern equivalent is the Giga Press: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/09/teslas-giga-press-has-l...
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#3Super interesting:
> The largest, the 50,000-ton forging presses, were behemoths: each was the size of a ten-story building, and could exert enough force to lift an entire battleship. The 35,000-ton forging presses weren’t much smaller.
and then
> Following Germany’s surrender, the U.S. and the Soviet Union divided up its large press capabilities as well as its rocket scientists. The U.S. dismantled four German presses and had them shipped back to the states
I wonder what the logistics for moving something like that across the ocean was. I know Soviets dismantled a bunch of factories during the war and moved them far behind the front lines...wonder what that was like.
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#4They talk about machining, casting, and pressing. Mostly with casting and pressing in a good light, machining not so good.
As somebody who knows absolutely nothing about this stuff, I wonder—casting, I thought, was generally a lower quality option (like cast iron doesn’t have fantastic high-performance material qualities, and I had some crappy cast pewter toys as a kid). Are there different, higher quality casting processes, and I’ve only seen the bargain bin results? Is there a general ranking of the quality of the result or is it all very complicated and material specific?
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#5Super interesting: > The largest, the 50,000-ton forging presses, were behemoths: each was the size of a ten-story building, and could exert enough force to lift an entire battleship. The 35,000-ton forging presses weren’t much smaller. and then > Following Germany’s surrender, the U.S. and the Soviet Union divided up its large press capabilities as well as its rocket scientists. The U.S. dismantled four German press…
There's an excellent video on these presses https://youtu.be/hpgK51w6uhk?feature=shared
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#6...and now the modern equivalent is the Giga Press: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/09/teslas-giga-press-has-l...
Not only is the giga press mentioned in the article, it's very far from being an equivalent to the Alcoa 50,000.
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#7Now I want to see one of these on the Hydraulic Press Channel!
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#8They talk about machining, casting, and pressing. Mostly with casting and pressing in a good light, machining not so good. As somebody who knows absolutely nothing about this stuff, I wonder—casting, I thought, was generally a lower quality option (like cast iron doesn’t have fantastic high-performance material qualities, and I had some crappy cast pewter toys as a kid). Are there different, higher quality casting pr…
Casting isn't necessarily "lower quality," it just has different properties. It's also much older (by thousands of years) than machining or pressing, but you can't get to the pressing or machining step without having an ingot, which comes from the casting process.
The main drawbacks of casting are you get a hard, but brittle product with (generally) uneven quality. There are processes (like annealing, though I don't know how you anneal a massive component) that can solve these problems, but all iron/steel is "cast" at some point.
Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#9They talk about machining, casting, and pressing. Mostly with casting and pressing in a good light, machining not so good. As somebody who knows absolutely nothing about this stuff, I wonder—casting, I thought, was generally a lower quality option (like cast iron doesn’t have fantastic high-performance material qualities, and I had some crappy cast pewter toys as a kid). Are there different, higher quality casting pr…
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Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press
#10...and now the modern equivalent is the Giga Press: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/03/09/teslas-giga-press-has-l...
Not only is the giga press mentioned in the article, it's very far from being an equivalent to the Alcoa 50,000.
Yes, it is mentioned in the article, and it specifically says: "We can see a modern, obvious parallel between the Air Force Heavy Press Program and Tesla, which has created a similar revolution in car manufacturing by using large aluminum castings to replace dozens or hundreds of smaller parts."
So I didn't think what I said was out of line. Obviously, I was mistaken.