Well it was time for a new model and I really wanted something special and rather than doing another crane I decided to check out this Mammoet Exchanger model. I really like how it was an actual move and has a story behind it however when I looked at the IMC site the explanation of what this was is off. I think a lot of people see this model but don't really understand what it is or what these parts do in a steel mill. I will try my best to do an explanation and if there are any steel mill workers here please feel free to correct any of my mistakes.
First, this is a really well done model that is very impressive and I love how it breaks up the collection. I really suggest this for anyone looking for a model that has a neat story behind it.
The first mistake is the way that IMC announces that this is the "top of a blast furnance", which is not true. What you see here is the Trunion Ring (dark grey), the Bottom of the Converter (light grey) and the Tilt Drive System (green blue). This Converter is being hauled upside down without the top on. It was built by SMS Siemag who is based out of Germany and build some of the most impressive pieces of machinery on the planet. The Converter itself is an actual BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnance) and produces mostly "Steel", where a blast furnance will produce the "Pig Iron" or molten iron that gets poured into the Converter by an overhead crane and ladel. The top of the Converter is not included in this model but it does have a big hole in the top so molten iron and scrap steel can be poured in as well as allowing a massive Oxygen Lance to come down and introduce pure oxygen to get the reaction going. The tilting has a few purposes like pouring out slag, pouring out steel and product introduction.
When this Converter gets moved into position they will move the (4) arms on the Tilt Drive (green blue) outwards and attach (4) motors to the ends of them. These arms are 4 stage gear reducers that all turn a massive Bull Gear in the big part of the Tilt Drive (Essentially the green blue part is just a massive gear box that tilts the massive Trunnion Ring which is attached to the Converter). They will tilt the trunion 180 degrees, install the refractory elements on the inside and then add the top of the Converter that has a big hole in it. On the other side of the Trunnion Ring is a massive pillow block bearing (light blue) that gets fastened to the surrounding structure. When this converter is full of steel it will weigh in excess of 1000 tons so the power train itself is a marvel of engineering especially when you see how quick and precise this Converter can tilt! I do not know the Hp or rpm of these motors for this application.
Here is a picture of another Tilt Drive in the assembly shop at SMS Siemag.
The 7 or 8 shield looking things (light grey) are what is called the Lamella suspension system. These connect the Converter to the Trunion Ring and allow for thermal expansion when the Converter is in use. Here are some pics of the suspension.
Here is the sequence of the Converter.
And finally here is some pictures of the Converter in action in the steel mill.
And now you know a little bit more about what this model is and the neat process behind it. There are numerous videos online of a BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnance) on Youtube that show everything going on. I also suggest looking up SMS Siemag to see how impressive that company really is. They usually do these installs themselves but TATA steel in Holland got Mammoet to take care of this one and I am thinking it was because of the massive weight when installing 85% of all the components in one shot.
A Millwright..... in Alberta.
