Ladles carried by overhead cranes were used to transfer molten steel from a furnace to casting. In the first half of the 20th Century, the furnaces would have been open hearth and the castings would have been ingots. During the second half of the 20th Century, even US management upgraded their plants to use Basic Oxygen or Electric Arc Furnaces and continuous casting.
 |
| Screenshot @ 0:44, cropped Slag off after casting
What’s the cranes load limit?
Author
If I’m not mistaken. I didn’t end up running these before I took a position outside of the crane unit at my plant.
I know our charge cranes are 450t main 75t aux.
Author
Curious to see pictures and setups of controls of the different cranes out there.
We are supposed to be getting new charge cranes in the near future at my plant. They talked about going to a completely different control setup. (I think they assume day 1 we should be able to run them just fine.
|
 |
| Stephen Cox posted Picture my coworker took from the other charge crane at ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor. I was reladling steel into an iron ladle to recycle it into a different grade.
This might sound like a stupid question. How is all of the smoke collected?
I’m not familiar with this particular mill but typically in BOP’s like this they have very high power fans pulling the smoke from the roofline of the building into huge ductwork down to a bag house. The bag house is essentially a structure full of hepa filters that take particulates out of the air and discharge the clean air.
In your lungs.
Author
even though the cabs are "sealed" (I say that loosely) every so often you know you're breathing some of that shit in!
When mixing grades of steel - question. Does it have to be perfect or just close and how does additional batches get properly stirred in? Recall scenes of shovelfulls of Flux or alloys being thrown into open hearths/furnaces, so just curious.
|
%20Facebook.png) |
| 1:11 video @ 0:34 Michael Harley: Bryan Calai can do it faster lol. Rich Kepoo: Michael Harley I thought that, also. Looks like the flange is gonna be toast, after that pour. Trevor Smith: Credit to the crane op, reladle while in the ladle car is a big risk! Nicely done. |
 |
| Mike Antio posted, cropped I'm not sure if anyone has posted this picture before. I've had it for a few years so don't know how old it is. Supposed to be one of the USS furnaces around Pittsburgh. (look familiar anyone?). I thought it was when the Penguins won the cup. But I don't remember which year. Michael Marich: Pouring hot iron around 2740 degrees into B.O.F. Martin Samuel: 2006 I was there. Had to transport the Cup! Christine Martin: Think the year was 2008 but it was at Edgar Thomson Works, BOP. Jimmy Johnston: Reid Meyer it’s from 2009 I worked in the BOP then. Robert Chappell: The year they didn’t win vs redwings. Mike Antio: Robert Chappell That makes sense. The date on the file is June 2008. I did some web searching before I posted and didn't see the Penguins winning that year. Dan Robertson: 2008 or 2009. Was taken during the finals. Troy Jackson: F vessel at Edgar Thompson. Mark Logoyda: That’s R furnace at E.T bop shop. Joe Barron: Had to be Edgar Thompson works and the charging isle of the Basic Oxygen Plant (BOP) shop. Only other BOP shop in Pittsburgh was at the US Steel Duquesne plant which shut down in the 1980’s. Tony Schofield: Handle enough of those aluminum bundles in my day. 50lbs. |
 |
| Jon Wolfe posted Six-foot Sigmund Lewandowski is dwarfed in comparison to the giant ladle of US Steel company January 11, 1951. The company had enlarged the capacity of its steel ladles from 192 to 215 tons. They are 14.5 feet high and slightly more than12 feet in diameter. — ACME archive photo Richard Allison: I threw many brick in those. After you brick the bottom, the side goes up fast by just dipping the brick and throwing them into place until you get to the top in which we would line the top with fireclay so the skulls could be pulled off easy. John Good: I dug a lot of them out with a gradall Donald Hall: WSX ladles we’re 15’ in diameter, and 17’ deep. Dug a lot of them with a jackhammer…never used a Gradall ! Dwight Kline: With the old ceramic stopper rods...I saw my share of "running stoppers". Herb Stitt: Dwight Kline In the days before hydraulic slide gates. Even now when a gate won't close they call it a running stopper. Dwight Kline: Herb Stitt Timken ladles had an electric motor on the cassette. I had to do a splice on a heat under a piece of corrugated metal sheet. |
Be sure to catch the dumping of the slag into a pot at 2:53. (source)
Darren Flynn posted two photos with the comment: "Brand new ladle headed to the shop let's make some steel #libertysteel"
Note that the steel is coming out of the side!
I’ve seen them drop a ladle full of steel. We’ve had that happen numerous times over the years with bottle cars. Now they use infrared cameras to check the brick liners.
130 heats is insane I work at a small foundry and I wanna day we are far far less then that on the amount of heats in one ladle.
More comments on Aaron's post:
Paul Wolf posted two photos with the comment:
I believe the company I work for came in and started inspecting your ladles after that cutout... http://vispdm.com/
Scott Marlow posted eight photos.
When pouring pouring steel into ingot molds, special bottom poouring ladles were used. the comments talk about this one using a "stopper rod."
 |
| Mike Maddog Madigan posted, cropped WEIRTON STEEL CHARGING SIDE NORTH TO SOUTH |
When you just see them hanging in the air, it is hard to appreciate how big they can be.
 |
| Roger Wright posted My Dad (second from left) was a foreman in the welding shop at Weirton Steel. He was repairing the bucket. This was taken in the mid 70’s. Kenneth Treharn: Looks like #21 steel ladle. Is this an Open Hearth Melt Shop? Calum Learn: Kenneth Treharn was open hearth at that time. Converted to BOF then shut down. Kenneth Treharn: Calum Learn yes, the open hearth's needed more ladles than a BOF. |
Darren Flynn posted two photos with the comment: "Brand new ladle headed to the shop let's make some steel #libertysteel"
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
Kevin Tomasic posted four photos with the comment: "Taking a walk through Pittsburgh's North Side, I found this orphan steel ladle sitting in a field. Nice old artifact--all rivited construction. No idea of why or how long it's been here."
Very cool old ladle. Looks like it's oblong shaped. Never seen one like that. All the ladles I've ever seen were completely round.
Johnny Bee
some ladles were made oblong as upgrades to shops wjen the furnaces got bigger. Instead of changing all the ladle hooks and stands for a bigger diameter ladle, just make the ladle oblong to increase the capacity and keep everything else the same.
These photos help put the "history" in Industrial History.
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
 |
| 3 |
 |
| 4 |
 |
| One of 16 photos posted by Bob O'Neal showing how ingots are produced |
 |
Baron Medlen posted |
I'm not sure if these cars carried ladles or if the "container" was permanently mounted.
 |
| John Eagan commented on a posting Mike Schattl The Pollock "Kling" hot metal cars. |
 |
| Sammy Maida posted 1937 Duluth Works open hearth tap. Joseph Samrzia shown in photo. Amazing that he's standing so close to the ladles. If you look closely, a tap is actually in progress it appears! Nah, that's the slag being scraped off.
Those are the shortest lifting lugs on the side of the ladle I've ever seen. No keepers on the ends either.
|
 |
| Screenshot @ 0:05 Ladle breakout last week [Dec 2018]. Arcelor Mittal Cleveland
What exactly is a break out? Breach of the ladle due to a crack or something? Why is he moving this through the whole building spreading it all over
|
The 3500 degree steel in the ladle burned through a crack in the firebrick liner and burned thru the steel ladle thus breaking out the side. There is 250 tons of molten steel in that ladle that was in a cradle under the BOF furnace and it has to be moved or it will burn up the cradle and the BOF. It’s being moved to a pit.
Which side, East or West?
East [It sounds like Arcelor-Mittal has bought two steel plants in Cleveland like they have in Indiana. Another comment indicates that AM Cleveland East was LTV.]
Republic. Then LTV then ISG. Then Arcelor Mittal
I’ve seen them drop a ladle full of steel. We’ve had that happen numerous times over the years with bottle cars. Now they use infrared cameras to check the brick liners.
Back in the day when they would cast in molds they had a stopper mechanism which sometimes would stick open. You would see the men on the pouring platform running for their lives. They were trapped on the platform till the overhead Crain would lift it off the mold and take off with it to the pit. The Crain operator was the real hero.
Sounds like a piss poor job of brick work and quality inspection! Dan Weitzman, how often are these ladles inspected and relief or repaired?
I was a refractory sales and service guy and before the ladle was filled, the foreman or at least a lead man should have visually inspected the ladle and if I was a mill foreman, I would be checking ladles with a heat gun to see if there were any hot spots. I doubt the brickmasons did a piss poor job. Probably a ladle that should have been taken offline and probably too many heats. There should be a record of heats and tonnage on every ladle with a ladle number. Retired in 2004.
 |
| Screenshot, cropped |
Aaron McKindley posted three photos with the comment: "I ran overhead at a small mill in my town union electric Burgettstown Pennsylvania had the ladle break out stuff like this happened weekly."
Gonna go out on a limb here and say ur maintenance team was shit lol
it was really Management we were all union, managements not and it was new foreman from other plants thinking we could push a ladle 130 heats without a reline happened a few times
130 heats is insane I work at a small foundry and I wanna day we are far far less then that on the amount of heats in one ladle.
We only get 100 heats out of our ladles. The last 10 or so we start to get nervous lol
Turn that stir down.
didn’t even put this heat in stir pulled outta the hole leaking everywhere.
[There are a lot of negative comments about Union Electric. It seems they have multiple locations, and they are all bad to work in.]
What size furance are you running over there?
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
 |
| 3 |
Ran a ladle crane(steel dynamics) for a long time..ya never get used to that..think my worst was a 180 ton gate wash on the caster..I just sat it on the turret when it let go..had the whole damn bay on fire..smoked about five packs of Reds that day!! [I presume that the gate is the cover of the hole in the bottom of the ladle. And a "wash" is the gate opening when it shouldn't. Or not closing when it should.]
 |
| Aaron McKindley commented on his post [This would be the 150 ton Electric Arc Furnace pouring into a ladle. We can see just the edge of the furnace. I think the whole furnace tilts.] |
 |
| Screenshot @ 0:19 Ladle washout in the caster.
Anything left of turret?
new catwalk and a lot of hydraulic lines back running in 6 hrs.
Ok so I work in our caster. I’m the steeler pourer. I have never seen anything like this. What is this and how did it happen?
|
Paul Wolf posted two photos with the comment:
Casting ladle Burn thru at Midland Melt Shop. The ladle was sitting in the ladle trim station when it went. Pit floor was dirt and there empty emergency ladles throughout the pit. The ladle pour wall was a problematic area. Toward the end of production we implemented an IR camera to alert to any potential weak areas and just pulled ladles off line preemptively after so many contact hours. It was not uncommon for the first heat to sit in a ladle for three hours to set up a 7 to 10 heat-sequence cast. This was an uncommon occurrence. The Pit Ladle Crane Operators were some of the BEST I worked with in 40 years.
My father worked at Mesta in Pittsburgh and swapped driving to work with an old ladleman, his legs were burnt from explosion.
We’ve had that happen and burn up the ladle lift and stirring coil at the LMS . Major mess I work in maintenance so lots of lanceing and removal of steel welded to everything.
We fabricated a wedge shaped spill box to mount on the outside of the saddle at the LMS because we started burning the winch cables for the electrodes (Causing then to slam on down into the ladle as hard as they could go) when this would happen.
we install electrodes with our ladle crane and have a strict inspection with our ladles in refractory to make sure that we can head this off before it happens.
Yeah we hold our electrodes with the crane and turn them with a wrench. The problem is when they burn through at the LMS it’s always in one spot (due to where they eye from the plug is) and that happens to be directly above where the pulleys are for the winch cables. Didn’t have this problem when we had a magnet, but I guess since the magnet worked so well we decided to get rid of it and join the ranks of plugs. [I'll confess, I don't understand what he is talking about. So much to learn.]
How you been Paul? I remember this day. Second worst burn through I ever saw. The worst one emptied the entire ladle between the trim station tracks. I spent half the night hosing it down so we could pull it out.
We ran into July. There are a few guys still working but the line is currently idled. Shipping and the prep/polisher are still running. One good thing is they have shut the line down properly for it to be started back up. They didn't do that before. The DRAP was turning a profit before the tariffs hit. It's an extremely efficient line and I think they regret ever shutting it down to begin with.
I believe the company I work for came in and started inspecting your ladles after that cutout... http://vispdm.com/
I've hooked up 4 ladles going through over the years. At least it was up high In a decent area.
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
 |
| Michael Hrysko posted Dumping Slag from a ladle after being on top of a 4 Strand Continuous Caster. Slater Steels, Hamilton Specialty Bar Division ., Melt Shop Hamilton, Ontario Canada 1996
|
 |
| Christopher Camalick posted This was said to be the largest hook ever forged in a blacksmith shop, at U.S. Steel Gary Works in 1913. This hook weighed more than 900 pounds and was used in the open hearth by a ladle crane. |
Steel making did not change much during the first half of the 20th Century other than everything got bigger and bigger.
 |
| Baron Medlen posted Ladle crane J hooks. Picture taken after a wire rope change on a 315ton P&H.
Author
|
 |
| Stacy Mays posted Just another day at the office. Cleaning slag off a ladle at the BOP.
Change the Paddle. !!!!
|
Animation video "Liquid steel tapped from basic oxygen furnace is then treated in ladle furnace i.e. secondary refining of steel. Here steel chemistry and temperature are adjusted and homogenised and dissolved gasses and inclusions are also controlled. Treated liquid steel is then sent to caster for producing solid semi finished products. this video shows 3d animation of secondary steel making process.
visit to see primary steel making https://youtu.be/WyPZK0HGG98"
 |
| Jake Keasling posted Uss granite city works. Looking down in #2 caster ladle.
Its almost "ladle empty"
|
Scott Marlow posted eight photos.
Nice series. That’s a small bottle car.
I was in charge of 30 of these ladles at USS Fairfield Works. My company had the contract to keep these ladles repaired and on the run. Sometimes we would do hot gunning on where the molten iron impacted the brick and would make a pothole and we would fill that hole with hot gunning mix. We also sprayed a fireclay mix on the ladle lips to keep the skulls from sticking to the ladle. We also did cold gunning to do a minor reline on the ladle and rebricked them when the backup brick got too thin. Sometimes we replaced trucks, wheels and axles and the knuckles as needed. It was not my favorite job but I did what no one else seemed to not want to do. [This comment was the motivation for these notes.]
 |
| 1 |
 |
| 2 |
 |
| 3 |
 |
| 4 |
 |
| 5 [Emptying a furnace would be a high-flow quick pour. Feeding a continuous caster would be a low-flow slow pour. In fact, the ladles are not poured out, the steel flows through a hole in the bottom. So it makes sense that they would have to queue up the ladles between the two pours.] |
 |
| 6 |
 |
| 7 [A comment showed a smartphone displaying Temperature 140.6F!] |
 |
| 8 |
 |
| Ken Pfeiffer commented on Scott's post |
 |
| Tomasz Lacki posted My big wheel baby . Best job I ever had . With George Oldham |
 |
| Bradlee Gregory commented on Tomaxz post [According to other comments, these machines can carry slag pots as well as ladles.] |
 |
| Larry J Stevens posted Canton Ladle Reline circa 2008 Dan Weldon: Hey I was running this I’m in the bottom of the ladle , the guy on the left was Mike Luwpas |
When pouring pouring steel into ingot molds, special bottom poouring ladles were used. the comments talk about this one using a "stopper rod."
 |
| James Torgeson posted From Bob Ciminel: Edgar Thomson Works, 1951. |
 |
| Jon Wolfe posted Whenever someone says the copier Jammed....well ya ever had a ladle breakout? Lol [The comments contain a 20 sec video of a breakout. But I don't know how to reference it.] |
(new window) Some of the comments above talked about a turret. I didn't know what that was. At 5:33 in this video, it shows the function of a turret. Specifically, it quickly replaces an empty ladle with a full ladle so that the tundish (reservoir) does not empty before the full ladle starts adding more iron to the tundish.
(new window) Another example of a ladle in transit and a turret is at 4:21.
 |
| Screenshot [Dumping a full ladle back into an EAF because it became too cool. They must not have a Ladle Metallurgy Furnace.] |
I was a Material Handling Foreman, Mold Yard Foreman, Pit Foreman, and Melter Foreman, in the 70s eventually running two 250 ton BOP furnaces, in Detroit. Took it for granted, but now realize how lucky I was. It was all bare knuckle and before OSHA was implemented to any great degree. We tapped a furnace about every 40 minutes as long as the molten pig iron was there to charge the furnaces. The pictures don't do it justice, but do bring a smile.
ReplyDeleteMy most notable event involved me as Pourer of a ladle whose rod could not find the spout at the bottom of the ladle, a "runaway" if you will. Everyone else had left the platform, leaving just me to pull the pole and run for it, but with the Craneman overhead, ready to move the leaking ladle to the successive molds like a coffer pot over cups, if I did not get the rod seated in time. With less than an inch left in the mold, my last push up on the pole sat the rod in the hole, barely avoiding a painful death.
Wow did this page bring back scary memories. I was a college kid and I worked at USMR in Carteret, NJ in the early '70s. I worked from May to early September and I used to kiss the ground when I went back to school. We also had a steam hose/pipe break over the electric arc furnace. Luckily I was just outside the building when it happened and it sounded like a bomb went off. j.pluta66@verizon.net
ReplyDelete