Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to build a 50k ton forging press

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 196 posts

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#21

Post by phiiiillll »

PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Nobody in North America has a press that can make a vessel for a nuclear reactor without making it in pieces and welding them together (probably adding a year to the schedule if you don’t use a new welding technique just developed in the UK not to mention people being anxious over the welds) There is a Canadian company that is gearing up to make small reactor vessels like the BWRX-300 but so far I haven’t seen a sign…

Was curious about what welding technique you meant, looks like it is local electron beam welding https://www.thefabricator.com/thewelder/blog/assembly/sheffi...

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#23

Post by PaulHoule »

phiiiillll wrote: post #21
PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Nobody in North America has a press that can make a vessel for a nuclear reactor without making it in pieces and welding them together (probably adding a year to the schedule if you don’t use a new welding technique just developed in the UK not to mention people being anxious over the welds) There is a Canadian company that is gearing up to make small reactor vessels like the BWRX-300 but so far I haven’t seen a sign…

Was curious about what welding technique you meant, looks like it is local electron beam welding https://www.thefabricator.com/thewelder/blog/assembly/sheffi...

That’s it.

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#24

Post by hwillis »

kibwen wrote: post #22
jcgrillo wrote: post #14

My little 20 ton shop press brake can bend 5/8" plate. Incredible to imagine what this behemoth can do...

Using advanced math I hereby extrapolate that this 50,000 ton press can bend 12,500/8" plate.

The second moment of area is quadratic with thickness (t^2), so 250/8" plate. But in reality 2-3x more than that, because at that scale steel gets a bit... goopy.

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#25

Post by jcgrillo »

kibwen wrote: post #22
jcgrillo wrote: post #14

My little 20 ton shop press brake can bend 5/8" plate. Incredible to imagine what this behemoth can do...

Using advanced math I hereby extrapolate that this 50,000 ton press can bend 12,500/8" plate.

well the next time I need some 130ft thick brackets I'll ask them whether I can use it after hours or on the weekend

EDIT: or, according to hwillis' math, 2.5ft thick. I guess those could be useful for anchoring a zipline to the moon or something.

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#27

Post by MisterTea »

phiiiillll wrote: post #21
PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Nobody in North America has a press that can make a vessel for a nuclear reactor without making it in pieces and welding them together (probably adding a year to the schedule if you don’t use a new welding technique just developed in the UK not to mention people being anxious over the welds) There is a Canadian company that is gearing up to make small reactor vessels like the BWRX-300 but so far I haven’t seen a sign…

Was curious about what welding technique you meant, looks like it is local electron beam welding https://www.thefabricator.com/thewelder/blog/assembly/sheffi...

I work in an EB shop doing everything from welding, engineering assistance, machine repairs, and complete machine rebuilds. It's quite an impressive process and Ive had parts in my hands that come from some of the biggest names you can think of in aerospace, semiconductor, military, medical and more.

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#28

Post by IshKebab »

spenczar5 wrote: post #17
bee_rider wrote: post #4

They 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…

Castings can achieve shapes that are impractical to machine. A classic example is a spoked wheel. The spokes are really hard to make precisely with machining, but fairly straightforward when casting. Bandsaw wheels are virtually always cast, for example. Also, the processes are not really independent. It can be much cheaper to do a rough casting, and then machine just the critical faces of it, instead of using an “of…

Spoked wheels aren't cast because it's hard to machine them. You can easily CNC them if you really want. But that would be insanely expensive and wasteful and not any better.

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#29

Post by thaumasiotes »

hwillis wrote: post #20

> Forgings have the added advantage of variable grain direction which generally can be tailored to the stress patterns of a specific design. This is a super underappreciated fact! It's often repeated that forging is just stronger, but just squishing steel does NOT make it stronger. Forging a part is so much more than just smashing it into a shape. Steel cable is made of pretty ordinary steel which is stretched 100s o…

> Blacksmiths had a legitimately intellectual job back in the day!

ACOUP noted that blacksmiths might be assisted by unskilled laborers, strikers, who had the actual job of lifting the hammer and hitting the object with it.

Re: How to build a 50k ton forging press

#30

Post by spenczar5 »

IshKebab wrote: post #28
spenczar5 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Castings can achieve shapes that are impractical to machine. A classic example is a spoked wheel. The spokes are really hard to make precisely with machining, but fairly straightforward when casting. Bandsaw wheels are virtually always cast, for example. Also, the processes are not really independent. It can be much cheaper to do a rough casting, and then machine just the critical faces of it, instead of using an “of…

Spoked wheels aren't cast because it's hard to machine them. You can easily CNC them if you really want. But that would be insanely expensive and wasteful and not any better.

Yes, I said “impractical”, not “impossible”.
Post reply on HN