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Production Materials
22.01.2004
TK
magazine
TK Magazine
312741_TK_Titel_1_2003_GB_grob
Think. Think it over.
Think up great new products:
ThyssenKrupp starts with
raw materials and creates
finished materials in every
conceivable form. You
can see ThyssenKrupp’s
fascination for materials and
feel it with your own two
hands. Worldwide.
EDITORIAL
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Our ideas advance materials
By Prof. Dr. Ekkehard D. Schulz,
Chairman of the Executive Board of ThyssenKrupp AG
t all times, people have debated the exact tasks of scientists. Do
they search only for the truth, or do they want to change the
world? Will they bring blessings to mankind, or become
Prometheus Unleashed, who became a threat through his violent abuse
of science?
As a leading technology group, ThyssenKrupp must deal closely
with the natural sciences. We do not claim to want to change the world,
but we do want to fulfill the expectations of our stakeholders. Our path
leads toward the future, with the help of all the creative potential that
our employees can put to good use.
This latest issue of the ThyssenKrupp Magazine presents practical examples of innovative thinking. Working with basic materials has
always been and still is one of our company’s core competencies, starting with the founders of Krupp, Thyssen and Hoesch. Thanks in part to
their inventions and entrepreneurial activities, the world changed.
In fact, the rate of change has accelerated substantially, and discerning thinkers of our time have drawn their own conclusions from this.
“Fast change is above all a product of science,” the philosopher and
physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker said more than three decades
ago. Yet despite the inherent truth of this statement, from Thyssen
Krupp’s perspective we see change above all as a consequence of altered customer desires. The customer and his or her desires form the
starting point for all of our considerations. Recognizing the customer’s
needs and interests is our duty and the basis of our future-oriented activities.
The manifold use of basic materials shows that we are on the right
path. Undoubtedly, steel is still our core basic material, but it also harbors unforeseen potential. For example, our engineers in the automotive supply business have managed to build an extremely lightweight
car body with the “NewSteelBody,” and our new “assembled
camshafts” with their significant weight reduction represent another innovation. Or take the increasingly broad range of applications for stainless steel: here, too, our innovations are advancing the use of this basic
material in household applications, food production, construction and –
of course! – bobsleigh racing, one of the faster sporting disciplines. Our
company even created one of the most sustainable applications ever:
stainless steel containers that are used to store “Germany’s cultural
heritage” – millions of microfilmed documents kept in an underground
shelter in the Schauinsland region near Freiburg, where they should remain safe and sound for at least 500 years.
But our efforts don’t stop at the basic material of steel. Our engineers also deal with magnesium, a fascinating basic material that is
only now being researched for customer applications, and aluminum,
which is perfectly suited for automotive applications. And new vacuum
technology provides us with basic materials that fulfill the highest requirements in aviation and aerospace technology.
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TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
The customer is king – and thus exerts the greatest influence on
our use of basic materials. ThyssenKrupp Services offers the necessary
platform: Within seconds, a special program for the selection of basic
materials churns out recommendations on which materials best suit the
customer’s requirements. And we have a lot to offer beyond the basic
material: Blohm + Voss, for example, offers so-called oil tools, instruments used to move heavy parts made of specific materials, onto oil
platforms. Here, the material provided the basis for the development of
the suitable tool, and things are no different in naval construction: a
new type of laser welding technology allows us to work on panels measuring several meters within the most exacting tolerances.
Are those examples of the work of Prometheus Unleashed? Quite
the contrary: ThyssenKrupp is committed to and upholds the principle
of responsibility, which is why we actively seek contact with young materials researchers working at universities or research institutions and
support their projects.
The principle of responsibility is a principle of sustainability. When
we supply stainless steel profiles for the visitor tower of Cologne Cathedral this year, it will combine technology and culture. Other successful
examples of this combination can be found in this issue of our magazine.
So please allow us to take you on this informative and entertaining journey, a journey through the world of basic materials at Thyssen
Krupp.
Sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Ekkehard D. Schulz,
Chairman of the Executive Board
of ThyssenKrupp AG
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CONTENTS
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004
4 A material made to race
High-grade steel moves at top speed on the bobsleigh track
4 Susi Erdmann
offers world-class
performance in her
race bobsleigh
12 Starred immersion that lights up children’s eyes
Iron powder helps bring out the sparkle in sparklers
20 Helping people move up the ‘sawed mountain’
Sleepers for the rack railway in Montserrat
30 Manufactured from components
Assembled camshafts for modern engines
32 Trimmed for precision
Oil tools for multi-ton drilling pipes
38 An up-and-down eye catcher
Elevator cab design as a form of cultural expression
42 Attention to detail in a gigantic concept
Barbara Schock-Werner helps keep Cologne Cathedral in shape
48 Ready to roll on this steel production by-product
LiDonit®, a stabilized slag, makes an excellent surface for roads
54 Going into the future lightly
The NewSteelBody is a triumph of the steel maker’s art
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Sparklers bring
a little light to those
dark winter nights
58 Advertising innovation
“We need people who are fascinated by production materials”
An interview with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Middelmann
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New cross-ties
help the railway make the
long climb up to the
monastery at Montserrat
32 Sensitive tools
for drilling pipes
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
CONTENTS
38 The design of
elevator cabs says
a lot about a country
and its customs
62 A “Hall of Fame” kind of guy is remembered
Edward G. Budd, the inventor of the all-steel car body
68 Styled in a light costume with plenty of flair
The new aluminum body of the Lamborghini Gallardo
74 A slap-shot-tested surface assures puck safety
The plastic ‘glass’ protects ice hockey fans in Düsseldorf’s arena
76 Invented for the customer
Jochen Adams’ materials selection program
84 The sea is no place for tolerance
Laser welding technology offers the tight fits needed in shipbuilding
88 Delivering unrivaled purity
Super alloys from the vacuum induction melting furnace
92 Creating beauty and protecting against corrosion
Stainless steel applications in everyday life
94 A tricky but plentiful material geared to the future
Researchers discover magnesium as a production material
100 Keeping them safe for centuries
Special containers protect important cultural documents
42
Master builder
Barbara Schock-Werner
uses stainless steel in
the restoration of
Cologne Cathedral
110 Glossary
112 Editorial directory
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68
Aluminum features
help bring lightness and style
to the Lamborghini Gallardo
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
“The handling of
production materials fosters
creativity,” says Prof. Dr.
Ulrich Middelmann
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BOBSLEIGH RACING
Steel makes
the difference
in this ice race
World-class performance in the
bobsleigh requires sleds made from
the best materials. Fortunately,
Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld GmbH’s Klaus
Nowak has a reputation as one of the
“high priests of the bob runners”
By Heribert Klein | Photos Walter Schmitz
Susi Erdmann is the current
world champion in the two-man
bobsleigh. She, too, profits from
the know-how of bobsleigh
expert Klaus Nowak.
He has developed new runners
for her in the hope that she will
remain difficult to beat in the
world’s ice channels.
t’s a queasy feeling. Because just the experience of seeing a bobsleigh race past
you as fast as an arrow at a speed of 150 km/h is crazy! But then to sit in the thing
yourself, with a helmet on your head that almost endearingly covers every millimeter of your head so that you don’t suffer any damage from the violent knocks, that’s
no joke any more. Because what awaits you on this hair-raising run apart from the
guaranteed “ultimate kick”?
What a piece of luck that you are allowed to take your place in the bob and three
young men push the vehicle on its way. Not just any old how, but with all their might.
It’s beautiful, the first 20 meters on the bobsleigh track remind you of a sightseeing
tour, you look around the landscape, at the pretty hills in tranquil Winterberg in the
Sauerland region. But only for a few seconds before the bob turns into the first corner
– the racing journey begins, unstoppable, getting faster and faster without the unsuspecting bob passenger having even the slightest idea of which corner he is shooting through right now with such power that it takes his breath away.
“Bobbing is no child’s play.” This is said by someone with a serious voice but
clearly sparkling eyes that make it obvious straight away: Klaus Nowak is wildly enthusiastic about this sport. Even in his small office, at the center of the sprawling Witten works site of Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld GmbH, part of ThyssenKrupp Steel, his bob-
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sleighing enthusiasm is infectious. There he sits at his
computer like a driving instructor explaining the theory of
driving a car, and takes his guest with him on a journey
under and through the bobsleigh, something which is
usually out of the question for outsiders. For a bob is a
high-tech product into which the designer lets nobody
look except the bob pilots. With good reason, because if
you look at the world elite of men and women bobsleighers, you will see the difference is not in seconds but
in hundredths of seconds, expressed in distance, centimeters not meters.
OBSESSED WITH BOB-TUNING TECHNOLOGY
Now and then Nowak has been called the “high priest of
bob runners” – to express that he is one of the top specialists who really knows about this difficult phenomenon
of the runners and the bobsleigh. Although first of all, at
the Witten plant he is responsible for the mechanical re-
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
BOBSLEIGH RACING
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BOBSLEIGH RACING
Taken to extremes by centrifugal forces
Bob pilots have to
steer with their fingertips.
Only then will they
find the ideal line and
shoot into the curve with
increased drive.
BOBSLEIGH RACING
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BOBSLEIGH RACING
BOBSLEIGH RACING
pairs including automotive engineering and hydraulics – in view of the gigantic machinery on the plant site a task with a great deal of responsibility. But the way life happens: at some stage in the early 1980’s he (and thus the company too) came into contact with the sport of bobsleighing. “I am a technology freak” he describes the basis
for dedicating part of his life with the greatest of passion to the “tuning” of bobs, as
he calls it. The technician, who meanwhile has 35 working years behind him at the
high-grade steel plant, quickly became famous. So famous that for several years he
equipped and looked after the technology of the Swiss national bob team – with Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld behind him as the sponsor of the team. For what speaks better
for a company than an employee who puts his employer first and does not place himself at the center of things at all?
EXTREME EXPERIENCE WITH EXTREME COLLATERAL ACCELERATION
Although he would be completely justified in doing so. Susi Erdmann, for example, the
reigning women’s two-man bob world champion, has just received brand new runners
form Nowak. The blonde, athletic racer also keeps quiet about the exact alloys the runners have. “If you haven’t got excellent runners that perform optimally, you haven’t
got a chance,” says the tall athlete, who is almost intoxicated by this combination of
speed and centrifugal forces. Almost, because steering the bob requires at least as
much sensitivity as does its production. “You steer with your fingertips,” says Susi
Erdmann, “the fingertips feel most precisely whether or
not the bob is ideally in line and leaves the curve with increased drive. You just have to be able to react tremendously quickly."
On the bobsleigh track, mind you. For centrifugal
forces in the periphery make this wild ride down into the
valley an unforgettable experience. But the “braining
around” in the high-grade steel plant, as Nowak calls it,
that is the other side of this intoxicating sport.
Nowak, a man on the far side of 50, likes working
with young people. He can try out what he has thought up,
changed, remade and tested himself as a technician, together with top sledders on the bobsleigh track. Preferably
in the bob with them on location: it is no surprise that Stefan Drescher, 27 years old and currently, as a member of
the B squad of the German bobsleighers, a particular protege of Klaus Nowak, gets the best material from him that
he has at the moment. But the designer wants to feel for
himself what effect his innovations have in the bob. So he
climbs into Drescher’s vehicle as brakeman – four times in
To the top with top-notch materials
Susi Erdmann never gets
into the driving seat of a bob
without intensive mental
preparations. Her talent to
control her passion for fast
rides helps her succeed in the
global top league.
Susi Erdmann knows
every little detail of the
bobsleigh track in Königssee.
Here, on her home turf,
she is proving once again how
incredibly fast her reactions
are. The new welded steel
runners help her continue to
improve her time.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
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BOBSLEIGH RACING
The bobsleigh conceals high technology. Klaus Nowak seeks to use new production materials, new processes and new applications
to secure a place at the top for such pilots as Susi Erdmann.
Into the curve in the steel chassis
a row he races down the bobsleigh track in Winterberg, afterwards expressing great
satisfaction that the new material means a time lead of two tenths of a second, would
you believe.
The symbiosis seems strange. On the one hand, a bob lacking every driving
comfort, uninsulated the bob riders crouch above the runners on the bare floor,
squeezed tightly into the fuselage (made of carbon fiber) like herrings in a tin. But who
is looking for traveling comfort during the experience of taking it to the limit the body
gets with the most violent of sideways accelerations, beyond the everyday, really taking you to the edge of intoxication?
“I’m not the kind of person who uses normal steels for the bob,” Nowak says to
distance his tuning work from the series production of the fast sleds (he also does
“tuning” for skeleton and tobogganing). That is an ambitious task, “because highalloy steels are hard to get under control when you are working them. For Susi Erdmann I used forged amagnetic steels to build her new runners. During the run they
conduct heat very badly, which is an advantage.”
a kind of shrine into which no stranger has entry. Piece by
piece the bob is taken apart, slowly it becomes visible what
kind of high technology is hidden in the inside of the highgrade steel machine. With a careful hand Nowak presents
his newest milled leaf spring, made of low warping, precipitation-hardening steel, followed by the steering head,
runner blades, stabilizers and everything else that is part
of the technical witchcraft. Witchcraft? Despite all the emotion Nowak radiates, in his reserved, almost introverted
INTO THE WIND TUNNEL
Let’s put that more formally: the structural steel ST 37-2 (general structural steel, tensile strength 360 Newton per millimeter) is not really Nowak’s material for bob use. The
friend of screws rather than welding (because of the frequently undefinable states of
stresses) tends to prefer high-alloy steels of a kind (to name a very simple example)
such as X 7 Cr 13. “You have to have a lot of experience with the materials,” he continues, “because an unmanageable steel tries to go in all possible directions, you have
to begin to dress it because of the precision. But the result is extraordinary.” There he
stands, next to his “apprentice” Stefan Drescher, in a small workshop in Winterberg –
For Klaus Nowak and his protégé Stefan Drescher, the
computerized data analysis of production materials and
bobsleigh races is of paramount importance. Success
requires a very considerable technical effort.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
BOBSLEIGH RACING
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Technician Klaus Nowak is certain that Stefan Drescher will deliver more and more top-class performances.
For the bob pilot now knows his sled and its technical refinement inside out.
way he is first and foremost an analytical thinker who leaves absolutely nothing to
chance. Not with the fuselage (which he can even test in the wind tunnel of an automotive manufacturer), not with the runners nor with the other fine parts of the bob. He
does not try to shake the physical facts: “With a hard track with tight curve combinations I need soft elements in the bob, these lead to better results.”
He knows the extensive small print of the technical regulations of the international bob organization by heart, but there is something he knows even better: the tolerances of the regulations that allow new developments. Here, so it seems, is where
Nowak sees his real field of work, in the creation of new materials, the working of them
and their use – over whose final details he lays a cloak of silence. With the exception
of Stefan Drescher. “Stefan now knows his machine exactly. He can install steering
heads, change front axles, measure prestresses, in short, he knows what material he
is riding with. On the way to the world elite this is absolutely necessary. I am certain
that in a few years he will be up at the top worldwide.”
TOWARD THE FINISH LINE ON LEAF SPRINGS
To then, the bob amateur asks himself despondently, race down the bobsleigh track
on the high-grade steel chassis as if bitten by a tarantula? Bob pilots are not despondent, not Stefan Drescher, even less Susi Erdmann. “I love everything that goes fast,”
she says in her happy, carefree way. “For example go-kart driving: once a year we get
into the karts because it is part of our training program. I’m thrilled at how fast you
can drive with them – which of course is even surpassed by the bob.”
Anyone who gets into such a steel-carbon fiber shell should know that this is a
high performance and racing sport. You cannot earn very much, notes world champion Erdmann. Sponsors tend to be hesitant with funding, and then in relation to that
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
you need “gigantic” technical support with the newest
and best material. “Nevertheless I still sled with the greatest enthusiasm, if possible until the year 2006, the
Olympic Games in Turin."
With Klaus Nowak at her side, one might add, that
man who somehow stands for originality, respectability
and a technical maximum. Always in search of further development, leaf springs he can bend in a cold state with a
two-thousand-ton press at the company plant to avoid
unfavorable changes. Thus in the end the gleaming light
that on the bobsleigh track, figuratively speaking, is linked
with the name Nowak, shines back on him and his company. Because he makes no secret of that either: without
all the technical possibilities at Edelstahl Witten-Krefeld
Nowak would not achieve the results he thinks up.
If more people had the opportunity to sit in a bob
themselves – the fascination about this “still” peripheral
sport would grow to the greatest heights. Because one
thing is certain: anyone who after one minute reaches the
finish, as swift as an arrow in a high-tech vehicle, climbs
out, shakes himself, gets his slightly out of joint bones
back into plumb and says to himself: when does the next
ride start? That is exactly what Klaus Nowak, the uncrowned “high priest of bob runners,” had predicted. He
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is right, absolutely right.
12
SPARKLERS
Iron powder for golden stars
By Sebastian Groß | Photos Michael Wissing
SPARKLERS
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SPARKLERS
SPARKLERS
15
An artistic composition of steel wires
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SPARKLERS
Sparklers with a bouquet of stars
SPARKLERS
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SPARKLERS
STICHWORT
erhaps the poets can help us discover the secret of the sparkler
– or as Germans colorfully call it, the Wunderkerze, or “wonder
candle.” The gnomes in Goethe’s “Faust,” for example, who
called themselves “rock surgeons” and claimed to “fleece the high
mountains” every day for metal. These gnomes are supposed to have
ignited the spark in their laboratory, which enthused Faust so much
that he could only exclaim, “Sparks are flying nearby / like disseminated golden sand."
Georg Alef is not a poet, but a cheerful man from Eitorf, on the Sieg
River in Germany’s Rhineland, who works with colleagues to research
and develop fireworks at the Weco pyrotechnics plant. As a specialist for
large fireworks, especially ones that can be synchronized with music, the
team has already won the world championship of fireworks title in Montreal for their impressive combination of music and fireworks.
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A VERY COMPLEX PRODUCT
There is little sign of these bursts of colors in the rather plain production
hall in Eitorf. Moving quickly, Alef leads a visitor to the “diver” – not a
gnome but an ordinary man who is an expert in safely and repeatedly dipping steel wires with a thin cover of copper, aligned in straight rows of 400
on a board, into a somewhat thick gray liquid, pulling them out, briefly
dripping them down and then placing them on a metal shelf to dry.
Witchcraft? Far from it. The sparkler, which measures 17 centimeters, or almost 7 inches, is probably the most simple type of magic.
Looked at prosaically, a few seconds of sparkling stars, a quiet crack-
ling and a soft fume pretty much make up the experience, and then the
sparkler is burnt out. Yet creating it is not that simple.
“For me, the sparkler is one of the most complicated systems that
I know,” says Alef, and when asked what all this has to do with the subject of basic materials, he answers, “A lot.” For what sort of substance
do sparklers burn? Iron powder and so-called sander dust, finely
ground iron whose granulation can hardly be seen. This burns together with barium nitrate (as an oxygen carrier) in a type of in-house blast
furnace process, with sparks flying, more or less.
A FASCINATING OBJECT
Alef is rather hesitant when addressing the question of whether he has
given a comprehensive list of the sparkler’s ingredients; he finally admits that the gray liquid includes two types of aluminum, dextrin (a
residue of farina) and flour as adhesive agents, then refuses to say
more. The exact formula remains a carefully guarded business secret.
“The product is very sensitive,” explains Alef. Which is understandable given the fact that the combination of oxidizing and metallic
substances (for example, aluminum) can entail hefty reactions. In the
worst case, the sparkler mash could boil and ignite itself: A fireworks
factory must put an absolute premium on safety.
Researching this inconspicuous object, which Weco calls “electric
sparklers,” makes for a eureka experience for the lay person. It refers
to a sparkling mind and it is based on an intelligently devised mixture.
Invented by whom?
Ground iron with the right granulation
Sparkler production is a
difficult process. The immersion
mass has to be just right,
containing the correct mixture
of iron powder and all the other
materials. Only then will the
sparkler really sparkle.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
STICHWORT
SPARKLERS
At this point, the pyrotechnician has no answer. Nobody knows,
says Alef. Even his boss, Lutz Kegler, an expert in his subject who heads
Weco’s research and development department and will retire after 35
years and 32 weeks in February, does not know. Sparklers have been
around since the 19th century, he reports, and probably emerged when
alkaline earth metals were first used. He, too, has experienced again
and again just how sensitive sparkler production is. Take the example
of iron powder: steel is sprayed into cold water to harden it and the steel
breaks apart, yielding a square-edged grain. “The heating of the
sparkler also causes tension tears. Sparks start to fly from the mass of
the sparkler material, and continue to burn and get hotter, then burst
again, which causes the star effect.” But according to Kegler, the consistence of iron powder presents a frequent problem. If it is too soft, it
only yields threads, “and you could forget about that.” The powder has
to be brittle, so that it breaks again.
The precisely conceived mixture of finer and coarser granulation
creates and outer and an inner bouquet – which is decisive for the high
quality of sparklers which, as in the case of Weco, are immersed by
hand.
The “diver’s” job is a quiet business. With a practiced, careful
hand he takes the board, dips the sparkler stems into the gray “brew”
and with the same rhythm pulls them out again. After letting them partly dry, he repeats the process. The movement must be consistent, and
the results not disturbed with uneven movements or even strong
breezes, in order to maintain consistency.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
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If this is not done right, drops from a burning sparkler could run
off and leave burn marks on clothing and carpets, or even cause a small
burn to a child’s hand. And then the magic of the evening would most
definitely be gone. It is not the technology that leads to a certain wonder, especially in children’s eyes, when a sparkler is ignited, but the
dreams and – as the Germans would say – the wunder. It looks so
harmless, and simple, but Alef stresses that there is frequent experimentation in an attempt to produce an even more brilliant, longer-lasting light. Metallic coatings have even been tried, Alef explains. “They
looked good, but production was too difficult.”
A BURNING SYMBOL
So for now, at least, the wonder workers at Weco will leave the recipe
unchanged. Sales are increasing, and the iron powder and the sander
dust will be more than adequate to give people a little thrill. Alef notes
that the material mixture is more potent than many people realize; iron
burners are used as “a real industrial igniter” to fire the thermite mixture used to weld together railroad tracks.
The sparkler has long become a symbol – for the sparks that we
hope will fly from heart to heart, for the people who need to bring a little light into the darkness, but also for the “burnout syndrome,” in
which people shine brightly at work but finally give too much, and have
nothing left. A sparkler lasts only a very short time, after all. It is a symbolic, mysterious and even wondrous little thing whose discoverer we
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do not even know.
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Y SLEEPERS
STICHWORT
Y SLEEPERS
Sleepers for the sawed mountain
A rack railway takes visitors up to Spain’s Montserrat monastery on triangular Y sleepers
By Heribert Klein | Photos Bernd Jonkmanns
hat would the Montserrat monastery be without its angels! There would
never have been this massif, located 30 kilometers northwest of Barcelona,
from where it can be seen in the distance. In the dim and distant past, legend had it that the massif was so steep that no man had ever set foot on its height of
1,200 meters, or more than 3,900 feet. Angels had to saw into the rock – Montserrat
literally means “serrated mountain” – to make room for a palace whose glory was a
beacon to the surrounding Catalan country.
But let legend be legend. In the Middle Ages, the outlying, barely accessible
massif was the site of a monastery founded by the abbot Oliva de Ripoll in the early
11th century, where the monks lived according to the Regula Benedicti – the rule of
the holy Benedict of Nursia. Their retreat into solitude, into the “desert,” made them
into monachoi – monks – and the attraction of this way of life led people to come and
live with them.
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THE ASCENT WAS AND REMAINS CUMBERSOME
Nothing has changed in this respect. About 2.5 million people travel along this mountainous silhouette of Catalonia every year, although most of the trekking up to the
monastery to the “Black Madonna” basilica is now done by car (via an often hair-raising route) or, more comfortably now, by train. A geographical formation that seems to
rise like an island from flat water is, from a geological standpoint, a massif built on a
pillar of Eocene conglomerate and sandstone layers roughly 60 million years old, covered by a block of Oligocene sediment stone that is formed from gravel, affected by
the wind and the weather and therefore shaped starkly and of a rare steepness. The
steep ascent had remained impassable or at least forbidding to most people, but has
A new era is starting for
Montserrat, near Barcelona. For
the first time since 1957, a
narrow-gauge railway now runs up
the steep mountain. ThyssenKrupp
GfT Gleistechnik GmbH supplied
the necessary track bed of
stable Y sleepers.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
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Y SLEEPERS
Y SLEEPERS
A hermitage for millions of people
The monastery mountain
marks Catalonia’s silhouette.
Legend has it that the angels
sawed a gap in the rock
to make room for a glorious
palace that would help light up
the lonely countryside.
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Y SLEEPERS
Y SLEEPERS
become more inviting with the addition of a new narrow-gauge railroad that winds up
the mountainside. It took many years to realize, because the original rack railway was
closed down in 1957. The trip, which started in the village of Monistrol in 1892 and
ended at the monastery, was over.
SPACE IS A SCARCE COMMODITY ON MONTSERRAT
It is as though the railroad awoke like a sleeping beauty, and the railcars have once
again been making their way up and down for the past few months – not on a conventional track, but one with a “track bed of stable sleepers.” Only an expert speaks
like that, and in this case the expert is Manfred Mahn, head of sales at ThyssenKrupp
Gft Gleistechnik GmbH, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Services.
His office in Hannover’s Vahrenwald district bears little relation with the air of
reverie at the hermitage in Montserrat, and yet there is a direct connection between
Mahn and Montserrat: The railway leading up to the monastery over 8,624 meters
needed new sleepers, and GfT Gleistechnik delivered nearly 5,000 of them.
But this railway is not like any other, and the sleepers are not like any other
sleepers, either. The stretch to the monastery would hardly be able to bear a highspeed train, and in fact a picturesque railway that quietly and unhurriedly approaches its oratory on the lofty heights is perfect in this meditative place. “The Y sleeper
perfectly matches this purpose because its triangular
shape is also particularly suited to light railways with a
tight radius, and the Y sleepers are quieter than concrete
sleepers,” Mahn explains.
A shortage of flat surfaces on Montserrat meant any
idea of installing heavy concrete sleepers measuring
about two meters (six feet) and weighing more than 200
kilograms, or 440 lbs., had to be immediately discarded.
The angle of ascent is enormous: The railroad had to rise
539 meters over a stretch of just a few kilometers. With
space so tight, only limited use could be made of heavy
machines, but the Y sleeper, which measures 1.5 meters
and weighs only 120 kilograms, could be laid much more
easily. Its narrower width is complemented by another advantage, Mahn explains: “We can lay the Y sleeper on old
substance and do not have to alter an old, crusted and
consolidated gravel bed. We use this existing subgrade to
build a new gravel bed, which only becomes possible due
to the sleeper’s low construction height of 95 millimeMontserrat attracts about
two and a half million visitors
each year. The narrow-gauge
railroad now provides for a
comfortable journey up to the
monastery, in a tight radius
on quiet cross-ties.
Cross-ties with
their own geometry
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
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26
STICHWORT
Y
SLEEPERS
The monastery is the final
stop for the railway that departs
from Monistrol, at the bottom
of the mountain. The rack railway makes the ascent across
bridges and through tunnels,
presenting travelers with a
wonderful view of the plain at
the bottom of the massif.
The home of the Black Madonna
ters,” or about four inches. It is the material combined with the geometrical shape that
makes the Y sleepers so special. Just under 20 years ago, they were conceived and
developed by the Salzgitter subsidiary Peiner Träger. ThyssenKrupp GfT took part in
the design process, and the two companies jointly own the patent for this innovation.
In 1997, Germany’s Federal Railroad Office approved the Y-Class, in addition to steel
trough, concrete and wooden Y sleepers. Mahn sees ample market potential for this
innovation because the German railroad’s route network has a length of about 33,000
route kilometers, or 20,500 miles, of which two-thirds is suitable for the use of the Y
sleeper. Today the sleeper is used mainly for stretches with speeds of up to 120 kilometers per hour.
There is, of course, no need for this in Montserrat. People leaving their cars in
Monistrol Vila (where there is parking for 1,000 vehicles and 100 buses) and stepping
into the new rack train make their way up to the final stop at a maximum speed of 45
km/h via. There are some tunnels, but also bridges and long stretches with a wonderful view of the plain at the bottom of the massif, from which the train seems to distance itself cog by cog.
Time and timelessness are important concepts for all monasteries – so what is
different about track construction? Says Mahn: “It takes several years before you no-
tice that fundamental mistakes have been made in the superstructure. Superstructure construction is a conservative technology that takes time. This is why the depreciation period for superstructure amounts to 25 years on
average.” Y sleepers lay on gravel, a coarse stone, which
has to be water-permeable because “the track has to be
able to breathe.”
SHAPES AS IN HALF-TIMBERED BUILDING
Another advantage of the Y sleeper is the fact that it allows for the laying of seamlessly welded tracks in tight
bends. Mahn does not even have to pick up the information brochure with all the details on the cross-tie: The passionate technician (who was also in charge of the complete solution for the production of the “gapless track” on
the slab track in the LOS A (level of service) section on the
high-speed connection between Cologne and Frankfurt
on behalf of GfT Gleistechnik) knows all the relevant data
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
Y SLEEPERS
27
28
Y SLEEPERS
on this Y sleeper system by heart. He explains that the
well-known advantages stem above all from the triangular
shape; known from the construction of half-timbered
building, it has an advantage over the rhomboid shape of
normal tracks in that it is much better at absorbing the
side forces that press onto the track.
Frame stiffness and lateral movement resistance are
two factors that Mahn says have decisive competitive advantages, not to mention the lower gravel requirements,
the lower transportation weight, a long lifecycle, excellent
recycling capacity and the optimum flexibility of steel as a
material for special types of construction.
Too much at once? Mahn begs to differ. “Although I
have a technical background, I see myself foremost as a
sales person who, together with the production team, has
to fulfill the customer’s wishes. My longstanding experience helps me here.” Above all his experience with Y
sleepers, although the customer in Montserrat was also
convinced of the functionality of the Y system and ordered it after seeing where Y steel
sleepers with cog rails had been used for the first time on the Andermatt-to-Oberalp
section of the Furka-Oberalp railroad.
According to Mahn, this will certainly not have been the last project of this type.
Quite the contrary: The expansion into eastern Europe, his local market research in
such countries as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic and the prospect of contracts for the domestic German network cause him to be optimistic.
MAN ON THE WAY INTO THE INNER WORLD
Yet the Montserrat route will probably remain exceptional, thanks to its panoramic
view, its ascent over rough and smooth, and its dramatic ups and downs (in air-conditioned carriages). Montserrat remains a symbol of independence, unassailability,
firmness, religion and music. For centuries it has attracted people on pilgrimages, scientists like Wilhelm von Humboldt and artists like Friedrich Schiller, who wrote that
Montserrat pulls a person from the outer world into the inner world. And not only that:
Goethe wished Montserrat to everyone, convinced that “man alone can find happiness
and rest on his own Montserrat."
But we have to get up there first.
7
A timeless symbol of happiness and rest
The Montserrat monastery
was founded by Benedictine monks.
Monks still live here today in an
incredibly beautiful environment. The
ride on the rack railway makes clear
why so many wonderful legends
surround Montserrat.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
Y SLEEPERS
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30
ASSEMBLED CAMSHAFTS
o anyone who says he doesn’t have to deal with the camshaft,
you can only agree: you’re right! But it would be worth your while
nonetheless. Because in recent years much has happened regarding this component so important in combustion engines. Right up
with the leaders is the company ThyssenKrupp Presta. In just a few
short years it has earned itself a good reputation with the manufacturing of “assembled camshafts” – very precisely purpose-built components that are now an indispensable feature of modern engine
manufacturing.
There is a camshaft working away in practically every vehicle with
a combustion engine. Four-stroke petrol and diesel aggregates need
them like the air to breathe, otherwise the fuel-oxygen mixture would
not reach the combustion chamber nor would the exhaust gases get
out. Only clattering two-strokes do without such a precisely manufactured gem in their housings.
If you ask drivers about their desires regarding the modern vehicle, two answers are heard well ahead of all others: the car should be
economical and ecological. In addition to all the factors that play a role
here, naturally the engine is of great significance: if its consumption is
low, the owner is happy. The advances in engine technology in recent
years have been immense – diesel and petrol direct injection are just
two major catchwords that broadly describe what has happened in and
around the combustion chambers. And the around part includes the
camshaft. Because all elements of an engine work as a team to ensure
that the entire engine runs even more precisely and efficiently and that
the fuel is better utilized. A combustion engine works like this: a gas-air
mixture is conducted into a round space, the cylinder. This is closed off
T
on one side by a movable damper, the piston. When the gas is ignited,
it expands suddenly and pushes the piston away, whose sliding movement is transformed by a mechanism into a revolution of the crankshaft,
which in turn is conducted to the wheels. The vehicle moves. The combusted gas mixture is conducted out of the cylinder through another
valve. The camshaft comes into effect at the valves: in the rhythm of the
engine it controls the opening of the valves: open – mixture in; closed –
exhaust out. You thus need at least two valves per cylinder, but for better combustion e.g. four valves have long since established themselves
(“Four-Valve”). Because a car engine, for instance, seldom only has
one cylinder, but rather in most cases four, it has four valves which need
to be controlled, in a corresponding six cylinder engine there are 24 already – the calculation could be carried on accordingly.
WELDED STEEL MEETS PRECISION STEEL
Back to the camshaft: it consists of a tube on which the cams are fixed,
whose shape is similar to a longitudinally cut chicken egg. It rotates
continuously over the push rod; at its highest point it pushes the valve
shut, at all other points of its rotational path it is slightly to completely
open and lets the cylinder breathe. For every combustion chamber, at
least one cam is responsible for two valves and ensures incoming and
outgoing air. For better control, these days two camshafts per engine
have already become widespread (one for the input and one for the output valves) and some aggregates already have four shafts.
“Of course we are delighted at the increasing numbers,” says
Hermann Weissenhorn, the divisional manager responsible for
camshafts at ThyssenKrupp Presta. Particularly as their specialty, the
Breathing with the shaft
ThyssenKrupp Presta supplies a specialty
for modern engines: assembled camshafts
By Rüdiger Abele | Photo Andreas Böttcher
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
ASSEMBLED CAMSHAFTS
“assembled camshaft,” is being very well received by the world’s engine manufacturers. “Assembled” means that the cam shaft is not
forged into shape or cast from molten metal, but rather put together
from individual, separately manufactured components: the tube with
the mounted, but extremely firmly sitting cams and the bearing and
drive elements. Using this method, the materials can be very precisely
selected for their use and in accordance with the framework of costs:
for example, the cams made of very wear-resistant forge steel or sinter
material and the tube made of simpler precision steel.
TUBE AND CAM BELONG TOGETHER
With the Presta method this works as follows: a blank steel tube of
exact length is fitted with the end piece, such as a cog, that later serves
the camshaft drive; right now it is used to exactly position the tube at
any given time during manufacturing – this is important so that the
cams point in the right direction and the valves do not move out of cadence. A motor turns the tube at very high speed in order to apply the
“rolling” at the place where, in a few moments, the cam will sit: a
rather blunt tool presses into the tube steel, precisely pushes away
material to the outside, so that fine, parallel rings are created whose
diameter is five tenths of a millimeter greater than that of the tube. This
is enough to fix the cam very firmly: the tube is stopped and the prefabricated cam is pressed onto the rolling, exactly in the prescribed relative position. Cam and tube are now non-destructively inseparable.
The tube then rotates again for the next rolling, the second cam is attached – and so on until the desired number is reached. In between,
bearings are also slid on. An initial quality check follows, before grind-
The “built cam shaft”
offers a significant advantage:
it is assembled from individual,
separately manufactured
components. The materials
are selected specially for
this application.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
31
ing of the shaft is carried out – ThyssenKrupp Presta supplies the
camshafts to its customers ready to be installed. Another, more exact
check follows, then the cam shafts are securely packed and sent
around the globe so they can soon ensure the right degree of breathing in a car engine. The assembly of a Presta camshaft takes place
fully automatically in manufacturing cells, lightning fast and with very
tight cycle times. For a passenger car with a four cylinder engine, it is
about 60 centimeters long and weighs one kilogram. The smallest
camshaft made by Presta is used in a Harley-Davidson motorcycle –
and is just 20 centimeters long.
“With optimal design, the assembled camshaft can save up to 30
percent in weight compared to conventional methods,” says Hermann
Weissenhorn. The motor runs more smoothly, fuel consumption is lower.
ThyssenKrupp Presta, although rich in tradition, has not been in the cam
shafts business for very long. Everything began in 1986. “First of all we
spent six years doing basic research and looking into materials,” remembers Weissenhorn. Finally the process was ready – and the first big
contract came from Ford, with delivery beginning in 1995. Since then
things have moved steadily and steeply upwards. In 2003 more than 12
million camshafts were manufactured for the great automotive manufacturers of the world, in two years the figure is expected to be more than
16.5 million. And all of this with the greatest precision, tolerances in the
area of hundredths and thousandths of a millimeter. “What we are doing
is precision like that of a Rolex watch,” says Weissenhorn, “and we do it
in large series.” For him the camshaft is more than just an inconspicuous piece of technology. “If I were bigger,” says the normal sized man
with a smile, “I would wear it around my neck as an amulet."
7
32
OIL TOOLS
OIL TOOLS
The comparison to a raw egg appears to be far-fetched, but is
nonetheless very close to the mark: Touching a drill pipe on one of
these gigantic oil rigs, rotating it, lifting it, turning it round, is a difficult
act – not to mention the loads with which they have to cope. However,
on closer inspection, this means very little, for 1,380 metric tons usually pose no problems for special tools, the so-called oil tools.
Jens Lutzhöft, production manager at Blohm + Voss Repair
GmbH, Oil Tool Division – a ThyssenKrupp Technologies company – has
discovered this. With Hanseatic sobriety, he presents the intricately
manufactured tools, which from an external observer’s viewpoint do not
look impressive, in the workshop on the shipbuilding yard in Hamburg.
It is hardly imaginable that one of these “Power Slips” could grasp und
hold a drill pipe weighing 750 metric tons.
What connection does this have to the topic of materials? “A great
deal,” says Lutzhöft, “for touching a drill pipe is a highly sensitive task.
The pipe can be up to one meter in diameter; however, the pipe itself
has a comparatively low wall thickness. The tool must be adjusted precisely to it, otherwise the pipe will collapse.”
Tough tools
for heavy work
on oil rigs
Special Blohm + Voss Repair elevators
can lift weights of up to 1,400 tons
By Benedikt Breith | Photos Blohm + Voss
Photo Gettyimages
THE WORLD MARKET LEADER IN OIL RIG TOOLS
Undoubtedly, the market, or to be exact, customer requirements have
changed. The times when, like in earlier days, drill pipes, irrespective of
their diameter, were moved and screwed together by hand, are becoming increasingly a thing of the past. By more widespread use of remotecontrolled tools, people are now trying to avoid the danger that heavy
sections could fall down and endanger people on an oil rig.
This sounds simple, but it is difficult to achieve in reality. The regulations are strict, they are subject, for example, to the American Petroleum Institute, the American Bureau of Shipping classification company, Det Norske Veritas, Lloyds’ Register, along with German shipping
classification society Germanischer Lloyd. The worldwide use of Blohm
+ Voss oil tools makes it imperative that they can fulfill security stan-
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
Touching a drill pipe is a
highly sensitive task. The “oil
tools” have to be made from
special materials so that pipes
with a one-meter diameter
but with a low wall thickness
can be grasped without being
destroyed.
33
34
OIL TOOLS
A “power slip” has to be
adjusted precisely to the drill
pipes. Otherwise the pipe
will collapse. Firmness and
stretch limits have to be very
high for this purpose.
dards in any possible country. Moreover, it is part of the market value
of, as Lutzhöft observes, “the world market leader in these tools,” to
adhere to all existing security standards.
Changing the materials used in these tools in such a way that the
loads can become increasingly heavy was one of the challenges that
Lutzhöft and his colleagues faced on the shipbuilding yard. The earlier
specification, in which high-tensile material was cast, is no longer adequate. Strength and yield points had to be increased, “basically, with
new chrome nickel alloys from which much more potential can be
gleaned,” is how the production manager describes the circumstances.
This was relevant for the heat treatment process via which the mechanical parameters could also be changed, he said.
CLOSE INSIGHT INTO CRITICAL AREAS
The pictures he loads onto his computer give a playful impression. The detailed view of the interior of such tools conveys its
own aesthetics. Color shots show the expert at a glance the
areas where the critical stress is. This in turn makes it clear to
which zone the engineer must pay particular attention.
What would happen otherwise? Many of the “elevators” –
the technical term for the tools which lift loads from drill pipes
while raising or lowering via sleeves – which are built in the spacious
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
OIL TOOLS
workshop, can also certainly display damage, surface cracks which
must be closed with great time and effort. After all, this is a prototype
that will be tested with an overload until the material breaks – by a press
weighing 4,000 metric tons, whose aspect alone instills respect, if not
reverence. Nothing leaves the workshop without this type of loading
tests. “Our tongs and elevator clamps must pass an overload test with
one-and-a-half times the payload before delivery,” says Lutzhöft. “The
oil companies want to see perfect certificates for all sections that carry
loads. We need this quality system in order to do this.”
The English language has a simple but graphic term for what the
employees are manufacturing here: it is called “pipe handling equipment,” a euphemism for a portfolio that meantime comprises some
200 tools that can themselves weigh more than two metric tons.
Despite all the computer-controlled technology, the production of
the tools for oil and gas production involves a great deal of manual
labor. Therefore, the employees in the specially equipped workshop are
absolute specialists, manufacturers who must have the same expertise
in the materials as in heat treatment, strength, impact tests and elongation.
It is a lucrative business. If the company succeeds in selling complete systems with power slip and elevators, such a contract is worth
some €2.5 million. Of course, such contracts always entail great pres-
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
Stress tests for all
eventualities
35
36
OIL TOOLS
OIL TOOLS
sure to deliver on schedule. Major customers, such as U.S. company
GlobalSantaFe, have extreme visions of tools that really can venture into
hitherto unknown dimensions and demand elevators with leverage of
almost 1,400 metric tons. Moreover, this is required in the shortest possible time, for time is money. Seven months should suffice. However,
considering that three months are required to produce the necessary
material, and four weeks for further preparations, it follows that very little time remains for manufacturing the prototype. “This stretches our
ability to the limit,” says Lutzhöft. However, he does not say this by any
means as a complaint, but emphasizes with visible pride in the understated manner that is his wont: “We still manage to satisfy the customer, because based on the materials we know already, we come up
with innovative solutions in a short time.”
FOCUS ON SERVICE AND MAINTENANCE
Built and manufactured in Hamburg, the self-same city which from
time immemorial has regarded the wide world as a playing field, the
Blohm + Voss repair elevators make their journey for their customers
to their destinations in America, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom,
Singapore, China, India, South America and Canada. These are precision instruments that must be able to fulfill the most demanding requirements. Beginning with the materials, however, absolutely everything must also function in such a gripper tool. Otherwise, the entire
competence of experts like Jens Lutzhöft is required – who apart from
manufacturing the elevators are involved to at least the same degree
7
in service and maintenance.
Oil companies have ever
higher expectations of their
tools – expectations that
Blohm + Voss Repair has to
fulfill. Elevators and power
slip are pushing into new
dimensions, built with
innovative materials that do
not burst even when placed
under extreme pressure.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
Quality tools for
skilled workers
37
38
CAB DESIGN
CAB DESIGN
By Sybille Wilhelm | Photos ThyssenKrupp Elevator
here could be no high-rises without elevators. What’s more, the invention of the elevator has turned the social structure of buildings
upside down: not so many years ago it was the poor who had to
trudge high up to their quarters – often in a cold attic, like Spitzweg’s
“poor poet” – while the more convenient lower floors were reserved for
the master of the house.
But then the elevator started about 150 years ago to revolutionize
the vertical housing hierarchy. Around 1900, building owners started
converting the old domestic quarters into expensive rooms with a view,
initially in American hotels and a short time later also in Europe. The old
servants’ chamber became the penthouse.
Since a sort of unwritten etiquette has always declared it inappropriate to stare too frankly at one’s fellow elevator passengers, people
often do not know where to look when they are inside an elevator cab.
A good idea, then, is to take a closer look at the elevator’s interior fittings, which can tell much about the architect, the latest fashions and
even the country in which the building stands. In other words: there is
such a thing as a culture of cab design.
T
A NEW WORLD SHINES IN EVERY CAB
If the elevator is rather small with a low ceiling, one is probably in Spain,
eastern Europe or Asia. “In these countries people have no problem
standing closer to others,” explains Rembert Horstmann, head of the
central communication and marketing division at ThyssenKrupp Elevator. In most Western countries, however, modern elevators are built as
generously as possible so that passengers can usually have their own
“space” – using the same principle that applies in public transit, where
people instinctively avoid getting too close to their fellow passengers
when a lot of seats are free.
Up for a taste of
the local culture
Elevator design sometimes says a lot
about a country and its customs
Square elevators are
practical, while round ones are
pleasing to the eye. Architects
no longer hide elevators, but
integrate them as a gem into an
overall work of art.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
39
40
CAB DESIGN
If the side walls are made from stainless steel, one has arrived in
the modernity of elevator construction. For in earlier times, elevators
were usually made from wood – a material that today is used almost
nowhere but in Spain and occasionally in North America. Safety factors
usually speak against the use of these mobile wooden rooms, however: elevators are supposed to contain as little flammable material as
possible. Not least for this reason, seven of every 10 elevators made by
ThyssenKrupp are fitted with high-quality, corrosion-resistant stainless
steel.
Stainless steel offers another advantage: the elevators of
ThyssenKrupp Elevator are built for the middle- to upper market segments, and these customers want the cabs to reflect this exclusivity.
“Although stainless steel isn’t exactly warm and cozy, it is elegant and
of a high quality,” says Bernd Scherzinger, head of the sales center in
Neuhausen near Stuttgart. In addition, the material has a long lifecycle
and is more low-maintenance than the formerly popular metal sheets
or formica plates widely used in the 1970s.
Designers’ latest fashion fads are the “Korn 200” stainless steel,
which is brushed and polished with a velvety shine, as well as stainless
steel with a linen pattern, where even greasy fingers leave hardly a
trace. Stainless steel can also be ordered with diamond patterns or a
leather structure.
Customers more concerned about prestige than about cleaning
can order the exclusive, highly polished stainless steel and, if desired,
decorate it with etched patterns. These rather grandiose stainless
steels tend to be most popular in Asia. In Western countries, a large
mirror wall will often be installed in the elevator wall facing the door, to
make it easier for wheelchair users to reverse out of the elevator.
Customers from Arab countries, in particular, like their cabs to
shine not only through stainless steel: in these countries, the sheets
often twinkle in copper, brass or gold. “Countries like Germany usually
have no golden elevators,” says Bernd Scherzinger. “That would be
considered too sumptuous here.”
ThyssenKrupp is regarded as the world's major producer of stainless steel, but, fortunately, that business does not depend primarily on
elevator construction, where “we work with pharmaceutical doses,” explains Rembert Horstmann. “What you see when you look at an elevator gives the impression that it consists only of stainless steel,” but in
fact ThyssenKrupp can produce the annual stainless steel demand of
the worldwide elevator sector in about two weeks, he points out.
THE FUTURE THRIVES ON TRANSPARENCY
Other trends are emerging with regard to cab design. Transparency has
been a fashion in elevator construction for the past few years, with one
in five elevators built by ThyssenKrupp now consisting of glass. “That
calls for totally different optical standards with regard to the shaft structure,” explains Scherzinger. For in the case of “normal” elevators, what
the passenger does not see does not have to be beautiful, but merely
practical, which is why the back of the cabin sheets, for example, is covered in insulation material, shafts consist of unadorned concrete, and
steel sheets emerge behind just a few millimeters of stainless steel.
In addition, all cabs are equipped with control systems that preclude crash scenarios known from Hollywood movies – which, incidentally, are purely fictional, because elevators have been crash-safe
since 1853. Glass elevators also boast all normal safety elements, but
these are kept as invisible as possible – which, of course, costs a lot
Insight into the past and the present
CAB DESIGN
more money. Glass elevators are usually used as striking architectural
features. In addition, they allow the customer in a department store to
feel regal as he or she floats majestically above the busy scene below
– while still spotting the odd item for purchase. The same transparency
in railway stations and at airports serves mostly safety purposes: for
one, passengers are better protected from crime, and terrorists cannot
use elevator cabins to hide bombs.
Glass elevators offer another advantage: “Nobody will scribble on
the walls out of boredom,” says Bernd Scherzinger. “Because he will
feel observed.” A simple mirror, incidentally, fulfills the same psychological purpose. “Even if the perpetrator sees only himself, he feels observed and gives up the idea of destroying something.”
After years of a barely noticed existence as a carrier of loads, elevators today are also popular architectural objects. What used to be a
necessary evil that had to be hidden away is today often considered an
architectural gem that must be fitted into artful construction. Some architects thus forgo the space-saving rectangular or square shape and
choose a more extravagant round shape. These days, the transition
from the reception hall to the elevator has to be as harmonious as possible – for example, through the choice of the same floor covering, such
as marble or tiles. Or a less dominating standard surface is chosen.
The elevator ceiling also usually captivates attention through its
simple elegance. It is supposed to dispense light and air and otherwise
be rather inconspicuous, but it should be worthwhile to look up: lighting ranges from classical lamps, halogen spots and a coffer ceiling to
indirect lighting and laser-cut patterns in the ceiling sheets – all of which
is also used to illuminate bigger rooms. Often, ventilators are hidden
above the heads – a must, for example, in the humid, warm climate pre-
41
vailing in much of Asia. Invariably, there are air boxes in the door area.
“So nobody will suffocate even if the elevator gets stuck,” says
Scherzinger, contradicting another frequently heard prejudice.
The base boards and the hand rail are equally inconspicuous and
practical. The wooden or stainless steel bars at hip height may be used
for support, but they are intended above all to prevent trolleys and other
such things from banging against the elevator sides. Wood looks more
elegant here, but it is more sensitive than stainless steel.
AESTHETICS REACH DOWN TO THE SMALLEST DETAIL
Finally, the very visible core of any elevator is the so-called service
panel, which determines where the journey is going. The most commonly used system these days is the push button, which established itself in the 1920s. At the time, it rendered the job of elevator operator
superfluous because the “self-drivers” – i.e. the passengers – were
able to handle the complicated technical process in the background
quite easily by themselves.
But the push button itself will soon come under pressure, since
the next generation of elevators will be steered with so-called touch
screens mounted in a central location outside the elevator entrance on
every floor; passengers will simply touch a small screen that no longer
has to be installed in the elevator. Such operating systems are now
available, and seek out the most intelligent routes for the individual elevators. This saves energy, time and space in the building.
Once more, this destination selection system becomes part of cab
aesthetics, which, irrespective of the design and the material used, will
continue to mirror a number of things but one above all: the culture of the
7
country in which the elevator transports its passengers.
Facelifting stirs emotions:
in Stuttgart’s SI Center and in
the Ana Grand Hotel in Vienna
(photos far left) the elevator
cabs look much older than they
really are. In banks, in turn,
modern elevators reflect sober
professionalism.
42
MASTER BUILDER
MASTER BUILDER
43
Stainless steel for a revered church
Cologne Cathedral is Germany’s most famous attraction.
Barbara Schock-Werner is the cathedral master builder – “a really marvelous task”
By Heribert Klein | Photos Barbara Klemm
very one of the estimated 9 million people who visit Cologne
Cathedral every year is overcome by a feeling of amazement at the
sheer unending mountain of stone that appears to be trying to virtually touch the sky.
Admittedly humanity has rubbed throughout the ages at what
poet Heinrich Heine described in his “Stänkerreimen” (“Moaning
Rhymes”) as a “Bastille of the spirit.” He did not like the cathedral. To
him, it was a “colossal companion... it towers devilishly black / that is
Cologne Cathedral.”
Indeed, the black aspect of its exterior has not changed, nor has
the fact that the cathedral, from an architectural point of view, is and will
remain a building site. Who would know this better than Barbara
Schock-Werner, the first woman to work in the outstanding office of
cathedral master builder since Jan. 1, 1999?
Building site or not, the master builder first and foremost has clear
principles, of course: “The cathedral is a monument memorial for God.”
It is not a monument to the destruction of war or to the destructive effects of harmful substances in the environment, nor is it a museum, but
a church, period. This is what it is and will remain.
On this irrefutable premise, it is all the easier to regard the cathedral as a building site with the most diverse requirements. It is a wonderful area for materials, for example steel. Schock-Werner has a clear
opinion on this: “Steel is a special product. In the higher sections, in
particular, we like to use stainless steel, since it is the only thing that can
cope with the constant battering by wind and weather.”
The ThyssenKrupp Steel segment will literally make a stabilizing
contribution to the cathedral this year by supplying stainless steel cor-
E
ners. The visitors’ galleries in the south tower in the airy heights of
around 100 meters, daily frequented by thousands of people, need new
steel beams. ThyssenKrupp Steel will deliver them. “The bad weather
has also destroyed these supporting corners,” says the master builder
laconically. On the other hand, the wear and tear is enormous, for the
numerous tourists willingly accept what is merely a challenge to their fitness and trudge up to this visitors’ gallery step by step. The unrestricted view across the broad expanse of Cologne over to the horizon, which
appears to be lost in the distance, is worth the physical effort. The
question of why only stainless steel is therefore used throughout the
cathedral, both inside and out, when supporting sections must be replaced, directs Schock-Werner into fundamental considerations: “All of
our measures aim to make us as superfluous as possible. Or to put it
another way: the material should last as long as possible.”
THE WEATHER HAS DESTROYED SUPPORTING CORNERS
This confirms a pearl of wisdom that is as old as the cathedral itself: If
it is ever completed, then eternity has begun. That could take some
time. Therefore, one is content with its non-completion, and promptly
turns it into a theory like the one the poet Heine had developed: “It was
not completed – and that is good / For the non-completion / Makes it
into a monument to Germany’s power / And Protestant mission.”
The master builder cannot relate to this type of poetry. When she
was elected to her office a few years ago, to the surprise of many external observers, she was immediately pigeonholed: Catholic, good
head for heights, female, vigorous, vivacious, strong-willed, a whirlwind
who wears the trousers.
The cathedral master builder
pursues a sustainable goal: the
material is supposed to last
as long as possible. A stainless
steel net offers protection to
visitors of the south tower – while
still allowing for a view of both
the interior and the outside.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
44
MASTER BUILDER
She looks very elegant and stylish in her trousers suit in her little
office in a building on the Domplatte, Cologne’s Cathedral Square.
Desk, visitors’ table and cupboards all exude the charm of pieces of furniture that have outlived the past. However, the computer on her desk
makes it immediately clear that Barbara Schock-Werner is not living in
the past – by no means. “We are living in the present and are therefore
modern. I want to demonstrate this outwardly too. I am fulfilling a function here, I use the materials of our time – and I will disappear again in
a few years, when old age comes.”
She is not lacking in examples. Modern materials such as stainless steel were purposely put to use in the newly renovated treasure
vault, which can gain a lot from them because of their elegance, aesthetics and clear lines.
As is always the case with aesthetic categories, they say a great
deal about the person they proclaim. Certainly, Cologne Cathedral is
much more than a contemptible building site for the head of the Dombauhütte, the cathedral building works. Correspondingly, Barbara
Schock-Werner would never describe her function as a job, but rather
as a “really marvelous task” in which, as she honestly admits, there are
sometimes days when she has the impression that normality is the exception, and on the other hand that abstruse, peculiar and crazy events
are the rule. Nonetheless, the cathedral master builder does not seek
confrontation, but discussion, in order to find a balance between the
various interests.
THE CATHEDRAL MASTER BUILDER IS IN CONTROL
It is really fortunate that the cathedral belongs to itself, and to no one
else. Under law, the cathedral is registered to itself – which is why no
one can make any claims to ownership. However, they can claim to perform patronage duties or charitable works, in the manner of the
Domkapitel, the cathedral chapter, for example, or the Dombauverein,
the cathedral construction society.
Anyone who is the focal point of such different lobbies requires a
personal robustness. No one would deny that the 50-year-old master
builder has this, from background onwards. She grew up in Stuttgart.
Her Swabian craftsman’s family left its mark: “I went through the German education system diagonally, so to speak: Mittlere Reife [the German intermediate school certificate], then trained as a draughtswoman,
because I was always interested on the one hand in art and on the other
hand in mathematics. This was followed by the study of architecture at
the technical university in Stuttgart.” To continue the diagonal: On the
side, she also completed practical training on a building site as a brick-
Supporting
steel corners
MASTER BUILDER
The visitors’ galleries in
the south tower at a height of
100 meters need new steel
beams. The stainless steel
profiles of ThyssenKrupp Steel
will resist the wear and tear
of the weather.
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46
MASTER BUILDER
MASTER BUILDER
layer and later trained with a carpenter. She makes no secret of her examination work: a two-draft chimney, which she built herself.
Did all of this predestine her to follow in the footsteps of Master
Gerhard, the first medieval master builder who in turn was influenced
by the most medieval of all thinkers, the scholar Albertus Magnus?
It is no aesthete’s job to be master builder of the cathedral in
Cologne. If one wishes, it is the application of the knowledge of the
seven liberal arts of antiquity – the “trivium” (grammar, rhetoric and
logic) and the “quadrivium” (arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy). It is heavenly harmony in a very earthly house, which, thanks to its
geometry, however, moves people in large and small things. Who could
not be impressed, standing lost in a building that measures 400,000
cubic meters in volume? In this regard, Schock-Werner is no different to
any other tourist who strides, strolls or shuffles through the cathedral.
Is it the work on a gigantic facade, a kind of sham church? No, the
master builder of the Dombauhütte would categorically refute this. The
latest scientific research findings are used in stone conservation, for example in the acrylic impregnation process, in which stones are saturated with epoxy resin methyl methacrylate, which in turn polymerizes in
the interior of the stones. She would also like to work with metallurgists
to gain an insight into which of the steel alloys used are particularly resistant to the elements. There is enough room for the respective tests,
high up on the towers of the stone house. In any case, the use of stainless steel is indispensable today, if new steel sections or supports are
required.
Paying due attention to detail in a large, indeed, gigantic concept
is what the cathedral master builder regards as her task. Heavily enriched in details, stretching from the foundation right up to the tops of
the towers, the restoration will never come to an end. Is this a frustrating prospect? Here, too, she ranks herself into a long-standing tradition
A bridge to eternity
The cathedral will never
be completed, for preserving
a space of 400,000 cubic
meters is a never-ending task.
If it is ever completed, then
eternity has begun. But that
can take time.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
47
in both the direct and the figurative sense: “The church in a secular
world: That is the picture I have of this cathedral, and it is the picture of
the church today. I want to be involved in working on this church.”
At least it is not a Sisyphean task. The progress is definitely visible. For example, the war damage is becoming increasingly less obvious. A flying buttress in the choir, which was damaged during the war,
was replaced with a new one. This year, the so-called “filling” will be
sealed – a patched area that was covered up quickly with tiles in
makeshift fashion in 1944. “A very complicated place with an intricate
structure and exquisite sculptures, the restoration of which we are now
bringing to a close, however.”
THE CATHEDRAL MASTER BUILDER CANNOT BE A DREAMER
Sisyphus, according to Camus, must have been a happy man, since he
found meaning in the absence of meaning. Maybe Schock-Werner’s
unruffled calm and almost Rhineland-like carefree manner has saved
her from such nihilistic romancing on meaning. She has nothing
against the term “conservative,” not least because of her profession,
as an expert in matters of maintaining and preserving. However, her
thinking is always directed toward the future, which explains her inquisitiveness in matters of materials research and stone conservation.
Incidentally, if one is running an operation like the Dombauhütte, with
more than 80 staff, a budget of several million euros and a considerable outward effect, like she is, one cannot be a dreamer, but must have
one’s feet firmly on the ground.
She does this, with verve, with the greatest conviction that the
task of being cathedral master builder in Cologne is a dream profession.
After all, she is working on a construction that builds a bridge to eternity and not, as Goethe wrote rather smugly, like a “fairytale of Towers of
Babel on the banks of the Rhine.”
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48
LiDONIT
By Sebastian Groß | Photos Rainer Kaysers
lag isn’t refuse, but is generated in steel production,” says
Michael Joost, who works in the corporate development department of DSU, Gesellschaft für Dienstleistungen und Umwelttechnik. It is part of ThyssenKrupp Services and is partly owned by the asphalt specialist DEUTAG.
The new product he is talking about is called LiDonit, a word that
actually has a very simple origin, despite its cryptic appearance. Joost,
a trained processor, does not give the impression that he is selling an
object that he knows only from hearsay, and when he says that “the
devil is in the details” in LiDonit you believe him because he can explain
every last thing about it, starting with the name: “LiDonit is a registered
trademark created from the name of the Austrian steel works in LinzDonawitz and the steel production process of the same name, and the
Greek word for stone (lithos).”
He then explains just what this trademarked product is: “A synthetic mineral substance that is generated in the smelter process in
steel production, which is rich in calcium-silicate.”
S
HOW THE MINERAL SUBSTANCE COMES TO LIFE
The abstract explanation in his office in Duisburg-Ruhrort becomes tangible when, equipped with a helmet, protective glasses, heavy shoes
and a protective jacket, Joost takes a visitor to the place where this
wondrous mineral substance is brought to life: Steel works No. II of
ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG in Duisburg-Beeckerwerth, Germany.
Seeing a cast remains an impressive experience. Inside are the elementary powers of fire, which with the help of injected oxygen spark a
unique flush of flame in the filled oxygen steel converter, while bringing
liquid crude iron, scrap and additives to the boil. The process seems to
take the observer back to the volcanic eruptions of former eons, when
Driving on
fine chippings
LiDonit is the name of the stabilized
slag that is generated in steel production.
It is a sustainable product because it
is used in road construction
LiDONIT
LiDonit is a granulated
material that is “cracked down”
in large breakers. Bulldozers
have previously emptied the bed
into which the slag was poured
from hoppits.
49
50
LiDONIT
LiDONIT
51
A mineral substance with potential
In the tilting process from
the converters, the slag is separated
from the crude steel. Blown-in
oxygen swirls quartz sand together
with the slag into a valuable raw
material. LiDonit cools down for one
week in the bed before being
stored in its processed form as
a finished product.
52
LiDONIT
A slag with
a strong grip
the earth slowly and over years and millenniums took its (presently
cooled) shape.
Yet the converter not only produces the valuable crude steel
mass, but also the slag, which is all too often referred to a waste product. “When the container is emptied, the crude steel is separated from
the slag,” explains Joost. In the tilting process, the converter tilts to the
left and then to the right, and 27 tons of the reddish-yellow, simmering
slag are poured into the waiting hoppit – which slowly rolls away moments later, to the only plant in the world where the Linz-Donawitz slag
is stabilized.
WHY LIDONIT IS A VALUABLE MINERAL SUBSTANCE
Seeing the later, final form of LiDonit is amazing – a granulated material that, in expert speak, is “cracked down” to different granulations in
large breakers like those used in quarries.
Which still does not tell us where the synthetic mineral substance
will eventually be used: as a core component of an asphalt cover on
roads.
“The stabilized slags display a very high level of volume stability
and equally strong firmness,” says DSU’s Joost. “In the sense of sustainable usage, LiDonit is an ideal material that should be just as interesting for road builders as for environmental politicians” concerned
about conserving resources, he adds.
For not only the steel, but also the slag as such is a product with
value creation potential – what more can you expect of a basic material these days? Especially when communities do not want “slag heaps”
scarring the countryside?
Two ThyssenKrupp divisions cooperate on this process. CarlHeinz-Schütz, the director for the metallurgy and heavy plate business
in the crude steel division and the holder of a doctorate in engineering,
makes no secret of his satisfaction that this use for slag has been
found. Schütz, who is in his late fifties, conveys the sort of laid-back attitude that one would associate with the rhythmically regulated processes in the steel works. As always, calmness exudes strength – which,
however, is no argument against speed. Schütz reports that the steel
experts welcomed the idea at the end of the 1990s to produce fine chippings “by using a lance injector to blow in oxygen and, without a mechanical stirrer, swirl the quartz sand to stabilize the slag.”
The silicon dilutes the slag, because, as Schütz explains, “The
lower the ratio of calcium to silicon oxide, the more fluid the slag. By
mixing in quartz sand, free chalk particles are bound in the calciumsilicate.”
It is a process that cannot be observed without special protection.
The lance injector creates such a gleaming white light that color filters
on goggles are needed to protect the eyes from lasting damage. Nearly 15 minutes later, the LiDonit mass is ready. And then?
According to Joost, the idea for this mineral substance came from
an attempt to find a sensible use for chalk-rich slags that otherwise
cannot be used in road construction. “In this way we increasingly return
mineral substances to the natural cycle. Slags with a high share of free
chalk particles, which normally cannot be used because of their volume
instability, are becoming really interesting for road builders.”
Steel works No. II could produce 200,000 tons of LiDonit through
the stabilization process, and according to Joost the demand is increasing. At present, 120,000 tons of blistering hot, stabilized LD slag
leaves the works every year to be left to change from a liquid state into
a solid state just a few hundreds meters away. Beds have been created for this purpose – not the sort of beds we think of in association with
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
LiDONIT
53
LiDonit is an example
of DSU’s ability to develop
innovative products.
Demand for this slag is
growing because the
Germans’ favorite hobby,
driving, benefits from it.
gardening, to be sure, but purely functional beds that are not without
their own strange beauty: the mix of colors can be delightful when the
new slag flows into the black bed and on to already emptied, markedly cooled slag. The hoppit rolls up and is emptied again and again for
several days in a row, and the resulting mass needs a week to cool
down for crystalline solidification. The quality is shown by the fact that
the surface of LiDonit does not stand out like rough sheets of ice, but
solidifies with total evenness – after a week the bulldozers arrive to
empty the bed.
Skips then take care of the transportation to the breaker, from
where the stabilized slag is taken to the road builder. Mixed with bitumen, fiber and mineral substances, the resultant material assures
cars of a better grip on the road while protecting the pavement from
heavy loads.
WHY LIDONIT PROTECTS OUR ENVIRONMENT
“Slag management” is the name of the offer provided by Joost and
DSU as a service provider. Even if the production of LiDonit costs
money, Joost detects immense, partly unrecognized potential in this
mineral substance. And “LiDonit protects our environment. The use of
this material safeguards natural resources.”
Is this already known to all those politicians who have committed
themselves to the careful use of natural resources? If LiDonit were not
used, more natural stone would have to be broken out of quarries and
transported to road building projects.
Joost predicts that the times when new slag heaps are being approved will soon be over, and that the time for LiDonit will really come.
Slag, he says, is far more than just refuse. “Fine chippings” is what
7
Michael Joost calls DSU’s LiDonit.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
54
NEWSTEELBODY
NEWSTEELBODY
55
ThyssenKrupp Steel’s NewSteelBody
is a model of the finest steel materials
tability and lightness, two important goals in the construction of
modern car bodies, demand modern materials that keep their
strength while lending themselves especially well to being formed
into useful new shapes. ThyssenKrupp Steel can offer a number of such
materials.
ThyssenKrupp Steel caused a sensation at the 2003 edition of the
world’s biggest car show, the IAA in Frankfurt, with the introduction of
a minivan body in white that was just as stable as the one in the reference model – the popular Opel Zafira – but 24 percent lighter and only
a shade more expensive.
It wasn’t only the engineers who were excited about the “NewSteelBody,” as the project is known: When it comes to market, anyone
buying a vehicle using this new technology will enjoy significant savings
in fuel costs over the life of his or her car.
By Rüdiger Abele | Photos ThyssenKrupp Steel
HIGH-STRENGTH STEEL FROM MODERN FABRICATION
The car of
the future will
be an affair for
lightweights
S
“With the NewSteelBody, we wanted to show what is possible today,”
explains Dr. Markus Weber, an engineer and head of the Auto Division
of ThyssenKrupp Steel in Duisburg. He stresses that “ThyssenKrupp
Steel isn’t getting into car making,” but that the NewSteelBody represents an invitation by the company to car makers to notice – and take
more advantage of – the company’s skills as a supplier, “Because hardly anybody knows more about steel than we do.”
An important part of the NewSteelBody concept was to produce it
with materials and technologies already on hand. It is a mix of different
ideas: high-strength steel that can be worked under the most modern
fabricating technology when necessary or, when it suffices, with more
conventional methods.
“This intelligent mixture makes the NewSteelBody so light at a
very reasonable cost,” says the project manager, Bernhard Osburg,
adding that the NewSteelBody costs only 2 percent more than conven-
The dynamic handling of
the production material steel
makes the NewSteelBody
so light and stable. The body
side members at the front, for
example, are pressed into shape
by hydroforming and contain
steels of different strengths.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
56
NEWSTEELBODY
tional auto bodies. “Extremely important in this is the expert engineering. It was the only way to optimize all the advantages of the steel,”
whose strengths can perhaps best be demonstrated with a figure: the
walls of some parts of the NewSteelBody are only 0.9 millimeter thick.
That’s barely 0.035 of an inch.
Opel showed an unusual openness with the project, making all of
the Zafira’s engeineering data from the Computer Aided Design (CAD)
process available, much to Osburg’s delight. “That is very rare, because it makes the entire car transparent,” he explains.
But the data was extremely important and valuable, because it
provided absolutely realistic technical values for the rigidity and the
crash test results of the NewSteelBody. The ThyssenKrupp Steel team
went to work and designed the entire body by computer; as is now common in car design, computer-simulated crash tests using the latest
standards were carried out to test stability. In the end, a fully built, lifesize quarter-section was completed for presentation to IAA visitors and
ThyssenKrupp Steel customers. “In five years, it could be in line pro-
duction,” Osburg says enthusiastically. And in the interval? The time
will be used to develop a new vehicle, although an advantage of the
NewSteelBody concept is that its use is not limited to being installed in
its entirety in a car specially designed for it; it can be incorporated in different parts and components that can be introduced gradually into cars
that are already in production.
COMPREHENSIVE KNOW-HOW ON NEW MATERIALS
About half the NewSteelBody consists of stamped parts, and the other
half of sealed, thin hollow sections. A thinning process is used for the
body side members, front and back, as well as the roofrail: thin-walled
tubes are prepared to the approximate size needed and then pressed
into their precise shape by hydroforming, a process whereby water is
injected from the inside at extremely high pressure.
The body side members at the rear are made out of “tailored
tubes” constructed by combining steels of different strengths, depending on the load, whereas the front side members are produced from
High strength and an exquisite shape
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
NEWSTEELBODY
conical tailored tubes – like a fanfare trumpet, their diameter steadily increases while maintaining consistent wall strength. This form allows the
beams to absorb the energy from a crash much better than a cylindrical steel beam can.
Working with high-strength steel requires technicians who really
know the material; people who recognize, for example, that when being
pressed into different forms some steels not only take on a new shape
but become stronger. “The structure changes,” explains Markus Weber,
citing the example of a paper clip that is bent back and forth: it eventually breaks in two, not because the metal gets soft but for the opposite
reason – namely that the stress makes the metal hard, and hence brittle.
Naturally, high-strength steel used in a car should not break in
case of an accident, and the parts are accordingly designed in a way
that their fabrication does not bring them to the limit of their stability
but always leaves a degree of elasticity that in a collision can absorb
energy from a crash. “A lot of auto makers simply don’t have this com-
The way from the
computer to serial production
is not far for the
NewSteelBody: in five years’
time, it could be hitting the
road. A current minivan serves
as the practical example.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
57
prehensive knowledge about our new materials,” says Weber. “But
we’ll be glad to pass it on to them.” The NewSteelBody is a transparent system, and anyone interested in its applications can receive all
relevant data and technical details from ThyssenKrupp. “We make
everything accessible to the auto makers,” and the reaction has been
very positive, Weber adds.
SHAPING THIN-WALLED PROFILES
New materials, including even more stable steels, will mean further,
continuing improvements to the NewSteelBody. Both Weber and Osburg believe that the steel can be formed and hardened in even more
favorable ratios, and that the thin-walled profile can be shaped even
more effectively.
Whatever changes are made to it, the NewSteelBody is already
assured of a role in helping to make sure that tomorrow’s cars are
lighter and more fuel efficient, while remaining at least as stable and
7
safe as today’s vehicles.
58
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
59
We need young people
with a fascination
for basic materials
An interview with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Middelmann,
Vice Chairman of the Executive Board of ThyssenKrupp AG
Photos Claudia Kempf
Professor Middelmann, ThyssenKrupp AG is Germany’s biggest basic
materials and capital goods company. Does its competence in materials constitute the company’s real capital?
It is a fact that our materials competence runs through our entire group,
starting with development and production in the Steel segment. Take
the Automotive segment, for example: on a metallurgical basis, we
have developed extensive competence in the remolding of outer panels. Through hydroforming we can use high pressure to press hollow
steel bodies into complicated shapes. Or take crankshafts: they, too,
display a very high level of materials competence, and the same applies to shock absorbers and camshafts. In summary, the example of
cars optimally exemplifies our innovative way of dealing with basic materials, and highlights our competence in this area.
You name the basic material of steel as an example. But don’t you work
with a multitude of different basic materials?
It’s true that we deal with a lot of basic materials, and new ones are
being added, such as magnesium, which was cast as a flat product for
the first time in Freiberg, Saxony. It would be a breakthrough for us if we
managed to produce magnesium flat products in a cost-efficient manner, because this would allow us to offer a full-service concept for light
construction. It would be a model product, particularly in the sense of
sustainable production. But you have to remember that our company
has a set materials pyramid. This hierarchy starts with bulk steels at the
bottom, then up to carbon quality steels, then stainless steels and then
basic nickel alloys at VDM with a nickel content of more than 30 percent.
The titanium alloys top the pyramid.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
What do the value proportions of this pyramid look like?
The proportions are clearly defined. The value of a ton of VDM steel, for
example, is about €15,000, while the titanium alloys’ value is much
higher. The Nirosta price per ton is between €1,500 and €2,500, while
the value of normal coated carbon steel is about €500. This is the materials price range. But quality has to be juxtaposed with quantity, and
then the pyramid reverses: We produce 15 million tons of carbon steel,
compared to 2.5 million tons of stainless steel, and 29,000 tons of VDM
steels.
Does this mean that the basic material of steel has potential – perhaps
unforeseen potential?
The motto for the steel segment is: our ideas advance steel. Innovations are urgently needed, if only because of drastic technological
change and associated changes in product requirements, which are
also reducing the lifecycles of our products. This will open up a lot of
new potential over the longer term, which will have to be tapped continually. In doing this, the focus of our activities will be the customer as
our partner. This is why sales concerns flow into our development work
from a very early stage.
What is the task of the materials researcher within the company?
The researcher is the driver of innovation, but he has to realize one
thing: entrepreneurial activities have to be guided by the market. We try
to give the customer what he wants through a value creation process,
and we have to earn money along the way. It is therefore the customer,
60
INTERVIEW
above all, who decides what we do. Each employee within our company has to realize this and act accordingly.
Is this approach part of a new corporate culture at ThyssenKrupp?
Let me point out the decisive difference: in the past, engineers used to
ask first of all what their competence was, and then developed a multitude of basic materials with numerous characteristics. After that, areas
of application were sought for these materials. Experience shows, however, that this strategy is less successful than the reverse approach:
First, customer requirements have to be researched and, based on
these findings, existing competencies are combined to develop a specific solution, at justifiable expense. But I want to stress that our entrepreneurial activities have to yield a financial result that creates added
value. Our modern production equipment serves above all to generate
profit. Only then will we also be able to create jobs in the long term.
And what about respect for the engineers’ competence?
I’m not questioning their competence. But it is not only the decision
makers within our Group that have to be shaken up. For decades, steel
groups placed far too much emphasis on technology: engineers and
technicians have a very particular mentality, and want to publish the results of their work with pride. The exchange of information in the relatively small sector thus knew no limits – everybody knew what everybody else had developed. We can no longer afford that. We are working
under extremely tough competitive conditions worldwide. It is an art to
remain quiet about real innovation. The most important thing is that we
win customers for our innovative products.
If I understand you correctly, the engineer has to be just as much a
sales agent?
Not necessarily, but I have to be able to expect of engineers that they
never lose sight of the marketability of their innovations. In this regard,
I am guided by traditional entrepreneurial principles. The product-market-profitability-responsibility relationship focuses on a very small circle
of actors. This circle is rendered anonymous in major corporations. One
person researches, the other produces, yet another sells, and everybody focuses only on their particular function. Real entrepreneurial interplay is often lost in the process. This has to change; we have to return to an understanding of the whole. All those in charge have to think
Technology and basic materials have accompanied Prof. h.c. (CHN) Dr. Ulrich
Middelmann throughout his professional life. Middelmann, 58, who has been
vice chairman of ThyssenKrupp AG and chairman of ThyssenKrupp Steel AG
since 2001, studied mechanical engineering in Darmstadt and economics in
Aachen. He obtained a doctorate from Bochum’s Ruhr University in 1976 and
an honorary professorship from the University of Tonji in Shanghai in
September 2003. In 1977 he moved to Krupp Stahl AG in Bochum and in 1992
became a member of the executive board of Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp,
Essen/Dortmund. In the context of the merger of Thyssen AG and Fried. Krupp
AG he was appointed to the executive board of ThyssenKrupp AG in 1999.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
INTERVIEW
homogeneously, with a focus on clearly defined economic and technical goals.
You are the patron of a material innovation prize, which is awarded by
ThyssenKrupp and the Ruhr University in Bochum. Is this an example
of how you want to move material research from the company to the research departments of universities?
The answer to this question has several aspects. For one, we cooperate with a series of national and international universities to recruit potential managers. ThyssenKrupp Germany alone employs 8,837 university graduates, including 6,430 engineers. Since the inclination to
take a technical degree is declining fast among younger generations,
we are working on joint programs with the Ruhr University in Bochum to
convince young people of the attractiveness of the engineering profession. In addition, we want to identify the most promising students in
these subjects. The material innovation prize is an excellent instrument
to do this. I have been in contact with the relevant staff at the Ruhr University for years to push ahead with a reform of engineering training.
Aspiring engineers urgently need business skills. As a trained mechanical engineer who also studied economics, I know what I am talking
about. An additional 20 percent of a degree should be dedicated to
business issues in the future. Graduates should know how a company
works, as well as the meaning of sales, production, procurement of
charges, accounting and much more. They should be able to calculate
and know what project and value management mean. In this way, they
will internalize that their work serves to safeguard and increase the
company’s value in the end.
So the innovation prize helps you find the sought-after engineering recruits who are so scarce in Germany?
The materials prize is indeed a suitable means of contacting young people who are of interest to our company. In any case, we don’t primarily
look for these people among trained engineers. We need creative employees, with a feel for technology and business thinking. This prize allows us to enter into an interactive dialogue with the university at an
early stage.
What happens to the freedom of university research and teaching if you
cooperate with a university?
The freedom of research and teaching is an important function of uni-
61
versities, which we respect. But empty federal and state coffers mean
that universities can no longer undertake just any research, without a
goal. Public-sector budgets are being cut back, which means that competition among universities is getting tougher. The universities increasingly have to subject themselves to a ranking and become as attractive
as possible in order to obtain third-party funds. In short, university staff
have to seek contact with those who can honor their achievements financially. In this way, research and teaching are being co-financed.
ThyssenKrupp AG maintains a lot of cooperation programs with other
universities and schools, and the board members seek direct contact
with these institutions. But aren’t these rather insufficient attempts for a
high-technology company to find suitable employees, who – starting in
the schools – are increasingly hard to find?
I agree that the entire climate has to change. The environment looks very
bleak. Students are less and less fascinated by technology. Young people rarely learn mathematics because they claim not to understand it.
Even greater is the fear of getting an engineering degree, which means
dealing in depth with mathematics, physics, mechanics, thermodynamics and chemistry. This skeptical attitude toward technology is reinforced
by deteriorating political parameters. Various planned laws thus limit the
scope or even threaten energy-intensive businesses in Germany. Meanwhile, politicians are concealing the fact that the processing industry will
logically follow this departure in a cycle of seven to 10 years. I have the
impression that the debate is being dominated by lawyers and sociologists. But no economy can stay above water with them and their concepts.
How about a bit of optimism?
As a realist, I analyze the facts first of all, and they don’t bode well for
Germany’s technological development. But an entrepreneur also has to
be optimistic. It is a hopeful sign that the federal government has declared 2004 to be the Year of Technology. ThyssenKrupp is contributing
particularly actively to the various activities initiated by Federal Research and Education Minister Edelgard Bulmahn. We have to keep lobbying on behalf of technology and innovation. We have to show young
people that dealing with basic materials demands creativity, manual
skills and in-depth technological know-how, and that working on solutions for technical problems yields a high level of personal and professional satisfaction.
The interview was conducted by Heribert Klein
Researchers are the drivers of innovation
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
62
EDWARD G. BUDD
EDWARD G. BUDD
63
An entrepreneur with a vision
By Carsten Knop | Photos Hagley Museum and Library
He became famous for
a ground-breaking invention:
at the beginning of the last
century, Edward G. Budd
replaced conventional production
materials with more modern
materials. He became the father
of the all-steel car body in the
United States
oday he is listed in the Automotive Hall of Fame because of his
achievements on behalf of the industry in the United States. But
there were times when it was far from certain that Edward G. Budd
would go down as a business success story.
No corporate executive likes reading headlines such as “Pioneer
without profit” about himself, but that is what Fortune wrote about Budd
in February 1937. The business magazine’s editors had obtained the
accounts of the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Co. and calculated that
this steel processor and supplier to the automotive industry had lost a
total of $3.3 million over the previous 11 years.
That did not read well, but those who were put off by the discouraging headline and did not read on missed the description of an
interesting milestone on a long road to success. For Budd, who was indeed for some years a pioneer without profits, had consciously accepted the losses in true entrepreneurial spirit. He wanted to pull his
company out of the Depression with the help of new products; it took
longer than expected, but it secured the jobs of thousands of employees in difficult times.
T
AN INVENTOR WHO FOLLOWED HIS OWN APPROACH
Times have changed. Today, the headline in a comparable situation
would probably describe a “visionary entrepreneur” and talk about a
courageous business founder who had turned something like a garage
shop into a global player. One thing that has not changed since then,
however, is that entrepreneurs still need capital providers who do not
fear calculated risk. Budd found himself in this fortunate situation,
being helped by New York’s Ladenburg Bank to restore his balance
sheet after the company came under severe financial pressure during
the especially grim days of 1934.
In the previous two decades, Budd had expended considerable
energy in convincing the automotive industry that an all-steel body was
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
From modest beginnings,
Budd and his company rose
to become a provider of topnotch stainless steel
railroad passenger cars, among
other products. Budd’s new
train cars cut the travel time
between Chicago and Denver
by a full 10 hours.
EDWARD G. BUDD
65
superior to a wooden one in every respect, and now he had fresh capital to show the advantages of stainless steel carriages for railroads.
Throughout his entire professional life, Budd was a stubborn advocate
of replacing traditional materials with modern ones, but several years of
training and working for other companies had shown that if he wanted
to follow his own approach he would need his own company.
When Fortune wrote the 1934 report, the Budd company was
more than two decades old, Budd – who did not attend a college or
university – having founded it in 1912 with $250,000. Even then that
was not a large amount for a capital-intensive business, and when his
first press would not fit into his one-story factory building Budd could
not afford to rent new premises and had to move the machine into a
circus tent.
WOOD THAT HAD TO GIVE WAY TO STEEL
Yet despite his shortage of cash, Budd had managed to lure away the
best brains from his previous employer, Hale & Kilburn, to brave the
new beginning together with him. This applied in particular to the engineer Joseph Ledwinka, who came from Vienna and whose inventions
became indispensable to Budd.
Budd also had contacts with the automotive industry that helped
open doors. The first customer to buy the young company’s all-steel
body was Charles Nash, who headed carmaker General Motors, alThe potential offered by
the new material – steel – was
little recognized in the beginning,
and the first all-steel car bodies
were still strongly influenced
by their wooden forerunners.
Even revolutions take time.
With steel to success
66
EDWARD G. BUDD
Edward G. Budd’s factories
were always considered
progressive, as is highlighted
by Budd’s more than 100
patents in automotive and
railroad construction.
One car body
per minute
though Budd’s real breakthrough came with an order from John and
Horace Dodge, former parts suppliers to Henry Ford who had set up
their own car manufacturing operation in 1914. The Dodge brothers
had heard a lot about the all-steel bodies from Philadelphia over the
previous two years, and were also impressed that they cost $10 less
than the wooden ones then being used. They ordered 5,000 of the allsteel bodies, which necessitated a move for Budd out of the circus
tent; a year later, the Dodges ordered more than 50,000 bodies from
him. His workforce, just 800 two years before, more than doubled to
2,000, bringing production to a body per minute. With the help of new
welding machines, this rate would soon be raised to two sets per
minute.
The growth continued apace, and just under a decade later the
Budd operation was turning out millions of car bodies for customers
who by now included Ford, Chrysler and Studebaker.
Budd, meanwhile, remained popular among his employees, and
not only because he had secured their jobs: the entrepreneur, who had
grown up in a small town and had started as a trainee in a machinery
business at the age of 17, was accessible, spent more time on the shop
floor than in the office, and knew most of his employees personally.
Shortly after the company was founded, in the midst of World War I, he
gave his employees free life insurance policies, set up a clinic staffed
with a doctor inside the plant, and paid female employees as much as
the men. From the day of the company’s founding, in fact, his employees shared in its success: Budd understood the concept of sustained
employee motivation better than most of his contemporaries.
And Budd was successful. Most of his potential customers had
grown through the construction of carriages, most of which were made
from wood. Although Budd possessed enough patents to ensure that
no carmaker would be able to press all-steel bodies for several decades
without a license from his company, he was more interested in convincing the world of the value of his concept than enforcing his copyright by slowing the triumphal procession of what he saw as the ultimate progressive material – steel.
While shunning the glamorous life and high-profile public appearances for himself, Budd liked spectacular advertising campaigns: occasionally he would arrange to have a car using one of his all-steel bodies plunged over a cliff, and then challenge his competitors to do the
same with a car using one of their all-wood bodies. Even an elephant
was engaged to prove the stability of a Budd steel roof.
AN ENTREPRENEUR WHO DARED ENTER EUROPE
Budd was also daring when it came to the rapid expansion of his company’s business activities – indeed, he was too early in venturing to
build his own plant in Detroit, the center of the U.S. automotive industry. He was drawn to Europe as early as 1924; Citroën showed
great interest in his products, and in this way the Ambi-Budd Presswerk GmbH was created in Berlin, which in subsequent years became
a supplier to Frankfurt’s Adler-Werke, in which Ambi-Budd held a
stake, as well as to Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Until the
Berlin plant was destroyed in a bomb raid shortly before the end of
World War II, a jeep-style Volkswagen had an Ambi-Budd steel body.
By then, of course, the German company was no longer related to the
U.S. parent.
But the expansion into Europe meant that when the Depression
hit, the simultaneous downswing on both sides of the Atlantic hit Budd
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
EDWARD G. BUDD
67
with a double whammy. Suddenly, the company found itself in the midst
of those 11 loss-making years that the Fortune journalists would add up
so accurately in 1937. Yet Budd persevered, and in 1934 he not only
managed to resolve his problems with the banks but saw the entry into
service of the first train made exclusively from stainless steel – the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy line’s legendary Zephyr. This aerodynamic, silver train captivated both experts and the riding public with its
low weight, superior stability, a General Motors diesel engine, newly developed seats and new lighting, and it became a great success despite
the economic crisis, prompting numerous railroad companies to order
similar trains. The welding method for stainless steel, developed by the
Budd engineers, was considered revolutionary.
At the time, Budd was criticized for the high expense of building
these state-of-the-art trains, to which he replied, “I’m not interested in
the costs; it’s the value and benefit that count. After all, we also use diamonds to cut steel.” Still, it took this “pioneer without profits” some
time to prove that trains with such evocative names as Super Chief,
Champion, Flying Yankee, Silver Meteor, Empire State Express and El
Capitan could be built at a profit by the Budd Manufacturing Company.
With the onset of World War II, there was no longer any need for
Budd to worry about the capacity use of his plants; as during World War
I, the company was engaged in armaments production. He survived the
war, but died in 1946 at the age of 75. His son, Edward G. Budd Jr.,
then took over the company management.
In 1985, Edward Budd Sr., the pioneer of the all-steel car body,
joined the grandest names in U.S. automotive history when he was
posthumously elected to the Automotive Hall of Fame in the Detroit
7
suburb of Dearborn.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
68
GALLARDO
The design is the guiding
factor: Luc Donckerwolke, the
designer of the Lamborghini
Gallardo, created a sculpture
on wheels,and ThyssenKrupp
Drauz has brought it to life
with an aluminum body. It
receives all sorts of refinements
at the plant in Sant’ Agata.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
GALLARDO
69
By Rüdiger Abele | Photos ThyssenKrupp Drauz, Lamborghini
ake 384 aluminum sheet, extrusion and cast parts, 864 punch rivets, and 181 screws. Then shoot the rivets into the light metal at
the right position, draw 115 meters of welding seam, pull the
screws tight at the right place, add glue where needed, and voila: the
body in white of a Lamborghini Gallardo.
Of course it’s not really that easy – aluminum processing is a
complex affair. Yet ThyssenKrupp Drauz GmbH, in the southern German
city of Heilbronn, has gathered so much expertise in car body manufacturing during its long corporate history that Lamborghini entrusted it
with the complete production of the body in white for this very fast car.
And why not? Drauz has already cooperated in the manufacturing
of the aluminum bodies for Audi’s A2 and A8 models, and the ultimate
proof of the quality that Drauz produces is proved by the fact that its artful constructs for Lamborghini are ready to go straight into the ultramodern paint plant at Audi.
T
TASTY INGREDIENTS FOR AN AUTOMOTIVE DELICACY
Before we go into the production details, though, let us take a look at
the finished product: the Lamborghini Gallardo is a very high-performance sports car, just 1.16 meters high, a vehicle whose look alone
tells you that this is a car that is meant to go very fast.
But let us consider its technical data, anyway, since it is a rather
tasty ingredient in this automotive delicacy: the engine yields an imposing 500 horsepower (368 kW) from 10 cylinders with altogether 5.0
liters cubic capacity, which take this roughly 1,600-kilogram sports car
A lightly dressed
Italian sports car
built for speed
ThyssenKrupp Drauz manufactures
the aluminum body in white
for the breathtaking Lamborghini Gallardo
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
70
GALLARDO
to 100 km/h in a breathtaking 4.2 seconds. Top speed is above 300
km/h. Any more questions?
Perhaps about the design, because the shape of the car’s body
naturally has a significant impact on the way it is produced, as shown
clearly at ThyssenKrupp Drauz. Lamborghini’s Belgian designer, Luc
Donckerwolke, created the Gallardo as a sculpture on wheels – and was
clearly very conscious of this mission. The body mirrors great artistic
freedom, which presents the manufacturers with numerous challenges:
it is not practical and even like that of mass cars, but exalted and extravagant, with sharp lines and racy cavities. Che bella macchina!
The Lamborghini initially
starts moving on a plain carriage.
The car body shell is made up
of nearly 400 aluminum parts that
are assembled with screws, punch
rivets, welding seams and glue.
TOP QUALITY IS TAKEN FOR GRANTED
It is hardly surprising, then, that 95 percent of the Gallardo body in
white is produced manually, particularly because it is produced in only
relatively small numbers. About 100 employees busy themselves in
ThyssenKrupp Drauz’s bright, spotlessly clean plant, getting the aluminum into its racy final shape. In addition, two robots carry out special
tasks. The motto: to produce top quality. This is why employees receive
nearly a year and a half of special training and the machines need the
same amount of time to be set up and adjusted: aluminum has its own
particularities and, in many respects, cannot be compared to steel.
Some employees who learned their craft in steel body manufacturing
had to make big adjustments.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
GALLARDO
The motto is precision
Just a look at the
drawings is enough to see
that ThyssenKrupp Drauz
faced a great fabrication
challenge. The finishing of
the Lamborghini Gallardo
body also requires a lot
of handwork.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
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72
GALLARDO
Luc Donckerwolke,
who designed the Gallardo
for Lamborghini, has
realized a vision by using corners, edges and cuts to create
style combined with function:
robots and sensors ensure
that the car body shell
receives its ultimate shape.
An exquisite aluminum dress
The body is assembled part by part, being welded only if it is absolutely necessary. This joining procedure is difficult with aluminum: for
one thing, the object always has to be placed in such a way that the
seam can be reached – which is why ThyssenKrupp Drauz has several
custom-made rotating devices to bring the different parts into the right
position. In addition, the excellent heat-conducting properties of the
light metal diffuse the strong heat that develops throughout the material, causing it to stretch – and occasionally not return to its original
shape after it has cooled down. But this must not happen, given the tolerances of one millimeter within the entire Gallardo frame and just twotenths of a millimeter for visible parts, for example the gap between
door and frame. This is why the engineers have to consider aluminum’s
special material characteristics when determining how the parts will be
put together. Rivets, for example, do not produce heat distortion, and
so are used wherever possible; the same with screws – which is why the
Lamborghini Gallardo carries so many of them in invisible places. The
mechanic uses a manual device or other equipment to press the punch
rivets into the right combination to hold the material securely together;
a loud pop sound can be heard – the rivet is in place, and the next is
placed in the right spot. Many such pops create a wonderfully dotted
line, which makes for a high level of solidity.
The lower frame of the Lamborghini Gallardo is made first, either
welded or riveted, depending on the construction requirements. It
consists of three sections: front end and back end are attached to the
floor, in the step that makes it apparent to the human eye for the first
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
GALLARDO
73
The Lamborghini Gallardo
is an undisputed star
on the streets and stradas
of this world. Five-hundred
horse power propel it to
100 km/h within just four
seconds; its lightweight
body helps, of course.
time that it is a car that is being created here. A wonderful example of
how the engineers pay heed to the material characteristics of aluminum are the flow drill screws, which fix the floor sheets and are
handled by one of the two robots: an automatic screwdriver is attached to its arm, and air pressure turns the screw securely into
place. It lets its top rotate on the sheet, which does not have any pilot
holes, creating temperatures of about 200 degrees Centigrade. As a
result, the aluminum softens, the screw enters the sheet, furrows into
the screw thread, and the electronic control system provides a torque
of exactly seven Newton-meters.
THE CAR BODY SHELL IS CHECKED PAINSTAKINGLY
The sheet metal specialists attach the car body shell to the frame: fender by fender, panel by panel, the Lamborghini’s racy silhouette becomes visible. Once again, a lot of riveting is carried out, but welding
torches also light their splicing fire on the light metal. Whatever seam it
leaves behind is initially filed away, and body specialists ensure the final
polish: Even the tiniest unevenness is sanded down; expert grinders
feel the surface carefully with their gloved hands and then use their
tools to remove miniscule amounts of excess aluminum. At last, a totally even surface can be seen where only a short time before the seam
was still clearly visible.
After all these production steps, each body in white is checked
to ensure that all measurements are in line with Lamborghini’s specifications, and to this end the future sports car is briefly lifted up and
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
fitted into the “teaching vehicle,” which meets the exact measurements. Any deviations are adjusted – though this is rarely necessary
at this stage. Testing of the bodies becomes more sophisticated all
the time; already, a sophisticated sensor spends four hours feeling
thousands of points and comparing them to the computer data in the
measuring space.
But the Lamborghini torso is not yet complete: next stop is the finishing process, where the body is polished to absolute evenness with a
very fine abrasive in a separate room with optimal lighting and a fine
dust extraction system. The people working here are at the very top of
their field, since not everyone can develop the sensitivity and visual
judgement necessary to determine where another trace of metal has to
be removed or where another very slight tap with a hammer is needed
to obtain the perfect surface. And one learns that “even” is sometimes
not even enough, for the first painting mercilessly exposes even the
smallest unevenness.
Confident at last that everything has been done so that another
Gallardo body will meet this exacting test, ThyssenKrupp Drauz ships
it to the paint shop at Audi, from where it will travel to a factory in
Sant’Agata in Italy. There, the Gallardo is fitted with its powerful motor
and everything else that is needed to make a true Italian sports car –
a vehicle that can perform brilliantly on the streets and stradas of this
world and look great doing it. A product of top technology and superior craftsmanship all packed inside a visually stunning, aluminum
7
body.
74
RINK ‘GLASS’
Ice hockey is the fastest, and one of the
toughest, team sports in the world.
For fans, watching a game from the front
row is the greatest experience of all
t’s the speed that excites – speed that at times seems beyond human
capability. Just as exciting, however, is the danger – a danger that
people seek out, knowing they are safe. We’re talking about ice
hockey rinks and one particular rink, specifically the Düsseldorf Eislauf
Gesellschaft (DEG) stadium, which has been known for decades for the
lively atmosphere created by the local team’s fans, whose creativity,
sayings, songs and heartfelt but restrained emotions are legendary.
With good reason: in this stadium, fans and players are very close to
each other. Close in a game whose speed is fascinating but also creates
the greatest potential danger.
I
PLASTIC PROTECTION FOR THE AUDIENCE
After all, the puck, which is a kind of stone of the wise in ice hockey, deciding triumph and disappointment, reaches a speed of 180 kilometers
per hour. If a person is hit by such a shot – traveling 50 meters every
second – it could be fatal. Therefore, preventive measures are taken at
By Benedikt Breith | Photos Andreas Möltgen
A shield that lets
through the emotions
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
RINK ‘GLASS’
the DEG stadium, and ThyssenKrupp Services was called in, and recently delivered a state-of-the-art protective shield over the boards that
surround the ice surface; known as “the glass,” it is, of course, actually made of completely transparent plastic. Still, that is not a material
usually associated with the name ThyssenKrupp. “As a trade organization, our range of products comprises a broad variety of materials,” explains Werner Eschbach, managing board member of ThyssenKrupp
Schulte GmbH, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Services. An expert who
has been in the business for more than 25 years, he is responsible for
the plastics division.
“You have to be excited about the material you sell,” is his motto.
“That’s the only way to be successful in the plastics market, which has
been shaped by medium-sized businesses.”
The order from the DEG certainly will not do much to increase
overall sales in plastics trading (an area in which ThyssenKrupp Services is the world market leader), but it is a good reference project that
convinces potential customers. The “Margard®” polycarbonate sheets
can live up to the demands of puck security, transparency and translucency, and that isn’t just an advertising statement, but the result of extreme tests. A test certificate lists exactly what the transparent material
had to stand up to: the puck was shot at the polycarbonate material 30
times at a 90-degree angle, and another 24 times at a 45-degree
angle, at a speed of 50 meters per second.
A SHIELD WITH STRONG PUCK SECURITY
But that’s not all, as the test certificate attests: “24 hours before the
test, the glass element was put in a climate chamber and cooled down
to 0 degrees centigrade, since such temperatures are the norm in ice
sport arenas at ground level and have a decisive influence on the
toughness of the glass.” The result: “No changes to the barrier. The
tested barrier withstood use without damage. It is thus proven to be
puck-secure, in accordance with the test conditions detailed above.”
The Margard® product is
stronger than glass. No matter
how hard the puck hits it, the
fans behind it are safe – so they
can follow the fast and exciting
game of ice hockey without fear
of injury. And with unbridled
enthusiasm.
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RINK ‘GLASS’
The testing completed, it was possible to give fans sitting behind
the glass in Düsseldorf new transparency and a high degree of security, leaving them free to enjoy an unforgettable sporting experience: they
feel so close as to be almost a part of the action, separated from the
players by only a thin, transparent band, and with a lively cacophony of
sound from punchy music and an excited, roaring crowd all around
them. The pucks that slam up hard against the glass – the vulcanized
rubber disks appear to be headed directly for the fans, only to bounce
harmlessly back into play – only add to the excitement. And it’s all
thanks to polycarbonate sheets.
TRANSLUCENT BEAUTY IN AN ICE-COLD ENVIRONMENT
Do the technical details interest the fans? Probably not much. But as in
real life, creating transparency is a lot of work, and Eschbach takes a
very basic approach: “We are service providers and put ourselves in the
customers’ shoes to find out what they need. That’s what we deliver.”
Eschbach mentions a whole range of products, which have to do with
another material that is just as important to him – acrylic, with its wonderful aesthetics that can be praised to the heavens. Luxury furniture
made of acrylic, highly creative art works made of Plexiglas®, “transparent objects of beauty” called light sculptures, in which light and
Plexiglas® meet and communicate. “The Plexiglas® brand signals reliability, quality and innovation,” and ideally complements polycarbonate,
Eschbach concludes. Polycarbonate was manufactured for the first time
in 1953 by the Bayer scientist H. Schell and was already being mass
produced in 1958. D.W. Fox discovered Polycarbonate for General Electric. The applications are unlimited: as roofing for greenhouses, as a
material for futuristic bathtubs, barrel vaulting, protective shields and
visors, and as automotive glass and protective machine guards.
Compared with some of these applications, the barrier in Düsseldorf’s DEG stadium appears relatively simple, but it is not only about
using plastics in aerospace or aircraft technology or some of the other
The puck remains safely on the ice
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
RINK ‘GLASS’
exotic applications that Eschbach describes. What is needed are barriers that divide and unite at the same time. Protective barriers that let
through light and images – and emotion – thanks to true transparency,
but at the same time protect people – like hockey fans – from dangers
on the other side. The results would be fatal if a puck hit a fan.
TRANSPARENCY IS IN FASHION
But let’s not forget the far-reaching thermal applications, which for polycarbonate start at minus 40 centigrade and end at 115 centigrade, or
the very good processing conditions: what’s known as the “semi-finished product” out of PC (this includes the material of the ice hockey
rink “glass”) can be bent cold and formed warm, beveled, sawed,
drilled, milled, nailed and screwed cold and warm without splitting. In
addition, it is durable against chemicals, gas, oils and non-aromatic
fats. Werner Eschbach does not hide his excitement about this material. The plastics business is part of a growth market, he notes from his
perspective of a service provider. “We are very well positioned; our
added value is above average. We are working on a multi-brand strategy, within which we are geared toward medium-sized businesses.”
Making things transparent is the trend, and this is especially true of
ThyssenKrupp, which has intentionally become a leader in transparency
(in corporate governance). Eschbach, of course, would not make this comparison, but he finds the parallels interesting. The new and highly transparent glass in the DEG stadium is a great example of how interesting orders with a broad public impact are acquired by ThyssenKrupp Schulte.
By the way, none of this had any impact on the outcome of the
game: in the 156th Rhine Derby, the visiting Cologne Sharks beat the
host DEG Metro Stars 3-0. In his heart of hearts, Werner Eschbach, who
works in Düsseldorf but comes from Cologne, may have been happy,
but he was diplomatic enough to keep it to himself. For him, there was
a more important result: 10,000 fans saw the game, entertained and at
times transfixed, and always in complete safety.
7
The demands placed on
the rink “glass” are high. It has
to act as a protective wall,
yet let the enthusiastic fans live
their emotions. The polycarbonate
sheets were tested under the
tough conditions that reign
in the hockey arena – and then
approved for installation.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
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78
MATERIALS SELECTION
MATERIALS SELECTION
79
Jochen Adams has an important role at
ThyssenKrupp Schulte: he is known as the
inventor of a materials selection program – the
ideal database for customers to find the right
material in the shortest possible time
Metal materials
– and the man
who knows
all about them
By Heribert Klein | Photos Claudia Kempf
ochen Adams does not leave the slightest doubt as to what he
does, or what exact functions he performs. According to his business card, he is “Head of Central Technical Sales/Quality Management” at ThyssenKrupp Schulte, one of the companies in the
ThyssenKrupp Services group. The title sounds more unwieldy than
Adams appears, for this title conceals a man whose entire professional
life has been molded by his expertise, interest and passion for metallic
materials.
“There is a lot to do here,” he says, sitting in his office, which is
filled to overflowing with records, papers and files. He thinks of thousands of questions that lead to further questions on every topic in materials science. This company officer with statutory authority named
Adams appears to be a walking encyclopedia, a person who knows
quite well how to use a computer, but equally adheres steadfastly to the
principle: “You have to read a lot in order to know where to find something.” This is all done in the interests of being a service provider for
ThyssenKrupp Schulte’s branches in all questions pertaining to metallic materials.
J
A DATABASE IS INITIALLY CREATED IN THE HEAD
Adams, who holds a degree in engineering, is the “inventor” and operator of a practice-oriented materials selection program. This involves a
database that meantime appears to have attained gigantic proportions,
based on which Adams can provide each customer with the type of
steel which fits his or her requirements exactly. “We have taken every
type of steel and analyzed its properties. However, the tolerance limits
of a norm were not the decisive factor for us, but rather the realistic data
from our calculations. In this respect we have results that we can pass
on to our customers that really have been measured.” He prides himself in the fact that he knows what he is talking about when he gives advice. Originally, he is a metallographer. He began working at Thyssen
Röhrenwerke in 1967, moving to the heavy plate mill in south Duisburg
in the area of quality control in 1970. “You have to have a lot of luck in
your life to achieve success,” he emphasizes. To name just one example, the fact that he discovered a pile of test result sheets for various
steels in which no one barring himself appeared to be interested in the
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80
MATERIALS SELECTION
Sights set on the customer
Jochen Adams has analyzed
and then stored on a computer
database the characteristics
of every steel. This data
is invaluable to the customers
who purchase it.
MATERIALS SELECTION
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MATERIALS SELECTION
Searching for the optimum solution
heavy plate mill was such a stroke of luck. Adams took the trouble to
study everything he saw, everything that crossed his path, and calculate figures and compare the results – and then record all these facts
gradually in a database. His life experience, however, has taught him to
exploit all the benefits of computer technology without running the risk
of overrating them. He would be unable to do that: “The computer cannot replace everything, but one cannot replace the computer completely either.”
He demonstrates how this works in practice with the passion that
is typical for him. He often stands up in the middle of the interview,
rushes to one of his cupboards, the contents of which – hardly comprehensible for an external observer – he appears to know page for
page, and pulls out a file purposefully. In Adams’ case, the comment,
“I can show you everything in black and white,” is no coquetry, but an
expression of the seriousness of his intent – which he knows how to use
when disputes arise in such a way that his reference to one or other
passage in the technical literature almost always puts and end to the argument. “Such experience is particularly useful in the event of arguments,” he says, “provided that one has read all the technical reports
and knows exactly where to find every detail.”
DETAILED KNOWLEDGE PUTS AN END TO ARGUMENTS
Normally, customers come to Jochen Adams looking for the ideal steel
solution. With today’s possibilities, he can serve them promptly. Assuming that a commercial vehicle manufacturer is looking for a heat
treatment diagram, and determines all possible properties such as
hardening ability, yield point, fold radius, welding ability, sheet thickness – then he can present them with one or a selection of suitable
types within seconds with the aid of his computer, which – generally one
of the most important aspects – is also actually available. “What use is
the most beautiful steel if I cannot deliver it to the customer?” asks
Adams, this time in the role of trader, beyond the function of metallurgist. Yet, if he finds a result in his computer for all parameters, Adams’
expression brightens. “Bull’s eye!” This is not insignificant, as it leads
to new turnover for ThyssenKrupp Schulte, and Adams is once again
contributing to the company’s prosperity in his own way.
Is this a boring job? Not at all, says Adams, there has not been
one day in his long career on which he did not want to go in to work, not
least because there are continually new challenges, he says.
INDICATIONS ARE IN LINE WITH EXPERIENCE
Then he becomes even livelier than usual. “I seek application-oriented
solutions together with the customer. This has nothing to do with research, however.” Nonetheless, the distinctions are blurred between
the two. If he mentions the materials “TS-ThermoCut 1 and TS-ThermoCut 2,” it quickly becomes clear that he can (also) be termed an inventor with a clear conscience in this area too, for he developed these
two types of steel for thermal extraction processes – especially laser
cutting. Moreover, the colored brochure which describes the properties
of these new inventions mirrors Adams’ personal expertise and standards, not just with regard to the details, the clearly portrayed information about the chemical composition, thermal extraction processes,
laser-beam cutting, laser-beam welding or cold forming. The statement: “The information with which we wish to advise you corresponds
to our experience” could be a direct quote from him.
Jochen Adams has long taken a particular interest in problem
cases related to materials. Being pragmatic by nature on the basis of
secure knowledge, he takes one or other object, places it on the table
and explains where the actual and not the putative problem lies. The vehicle manufacturer, for instance, who does not fold using the stipulated
radius of 10 millimeters, but only with 1 millimeter, at which point the
edge breaks: “That will never work.” Then there is the maker of a machine which vacuum-packs meat: The machine is rusting in every imaginable place, and the manufacturer and operator of the machine claims
to know with certainty that this is caused by the wrong materials. However, Adams knows with even more certainty that it is caused by the
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MATERIALS SELECTION
83
THE MATERIALS SELECTION PROGRAM AT A GLANCE
In line with the individual user’s respective requirements,
the program recommends the suitable material for the relevant
application.
Finding the right material in three steps:
Jochen Adams
is a pragmatic man who has
worked with steel throughout
his studies and his career.
The materials selection
program he developed
serves only one purpose:
helping the customer.
cleaning agents with which the machine works and which are not rinsed
off completely – and thus have an abrasive effect on the metal.
In another example, someone produces a pressure vessel for domestic gas lines, and bores a steel round for this purpose. In the telling,
his voice goes up a register, his relaxed demeanor has vanished, and
one can only hear words like “incredible mistakes, quite the catastrophe.” “Why? A pressure vessel is built from steel rounds by boring it. I
told them that would not work, because the interiors of steel rounds of
this thickness are not always gastight and therefore gas can escape. Incredible!”
However, how many people like to admit their mistakes? No one
does, according to Adams’ long years of experience. Therefore, he laid
the basis all the more persistently for locating mistakes where they arise
– wherever this may be, and even if it is in his own company. Adams is
a much too honest practitioner of his craft to keep the truth to himself.
After all, a considerable portion of his career success lies in the fact that
he has developed and built up a system that serves both to detect errors and to avoid mistakes.
EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE TO BE SHARED
Whenever he retires, who will take over this legacy of his intensive professional life? He holds out great hopes for three of the technicians
who work with him and are set to follow in his footsteps. Everything augurs well for this at the moment, for Adams will pass on all the expertise he has gained. So far, so good. However, a residual insecurity remains. Everyone must gather experience for himself or herself, and
experience is an intrinsic component of Adams’ materials selection
program for ordinary, alloyed and high-alloy steel. It is hardly imaginable that someone (like Adams) at some stage would no longer be able
to say: “Read up in this passage in the technical literature from 1968,
or in this text from 1978, or read the materials specification sheet from
1989.” There is no question that Jochen Adams will be sorely needed
7
for some time to come.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
1. Select the sector
2. Identify the characteristics
3. Define specifications
The sector selection is followed by the indication of up to three
pre-selected characteristics, which are particularly relevant for
this sector. The user can confirm these characteristics or select new ones. The necessary specifications for each characteristic can then be determined precisely. During the selection
process, the program also checks the required availability of
the production material.
Precise selection possibilities
Characteristics are divided into 37 categories, such as vibration strength, cold-forming properties, heat conductivity,
weather resistance, rolling properties, yield strength, tensile
strength, elongation after fracture, weldability, bend radius,
elasticity moduling and surface treatability etc.
Each of these characteristics can be indicated through a precise value; to this end, up to 50 specifications per characteristic are laid out.
Comprehensive contents
The program database contains about 500 steels, including
the 32 most commonly used high-alloy steels. The data are
based on measured materials analyses – which are also documented in works products – from steel production. The information is regularly adjusted and updated to reflect the latest
status of norms and technology.
Materials sheets are available for several steels. For steels that
can be handled warm, time-temperature conversion presentations are available. As for steel types that can be used in components, where vibration stress capability is required, stresscycle diagrams are available that rate the fatigue strength. All
search results as well as the various ZTU presentations on file,
stress-cycle diagrams and material specifications sheets, can
be easily printed out.
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LASERS
LASERS
85
Laser welding requires
special steels with a specific
make-up. Precision engineering
with laser technology is
unrivaled for precision work on
these materials with a sheet
thickness of 3 to 12 millimeters.
Perfect precision
thanks to lasers
The quality of Blohm + Voss’s new welding technology
is nothing short of world class
By Benedikt Breith | Photos Blohm + Voss
olerance is desirable as a quality between different
people and groups, but the goal in this case is to
keep it to a minimum. Why? Because “precision engineering,” as experts call it, is the goal and the name of
a technology that uses lasers to keep tolerances as low
as possible.
The expert’s name is Alfred Kahl, head of shipbuilding in Hamburg at Blohm + Voss, a subsidiary of
ThyssenKrupp Technologies. He is a straightforward engineer who doesn’t get flowery when the subject turns to
laser technology, yet is unable to resist listing its advantages down to the last detail. Of course, he realizes that
for many people, laser technology means one Hollywood
sensation or another: wasn’t it used in that James Bond
film? Didn’t Bond use laser beams to destroy airplanes,
and weren’t lasers even being deployed in an attempt to
rule the world?
Kahl keeps his feet on the ground – figuratively
speaking, for he is using laser technology to build ships
that will traverse the world’s oceans safely. This leads us
back to a theme that Kahl enjoys talking about: precision
shipbuilding.
Kahl leads us through an assembly hangar that
demonstrates the huge dimensions of the objects he
works with, which in a sense are in reverse proportion to
T
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
the precise, measured-by-the-millimeter work done by the laser. “What’s relevant for
us when it comes to using lasers is steel plate between three and 12 millimeters,” explains Kahl. “We don’t use lasers for thicker steel plate."
Precision and size have undergone an amazing symbiosis at Blohm + Voss,
where a vessel 150 meters, or 490 feet, in length is expected to have a maximum joint
gap of 0.3 millimeters. It seems like nothing, and yet it is for deck elements that can
be welded together at a maximum of 12 meters in length and 4 meters in width. Kahl
says that the results make the high-tech equipment worth it.
“The work that goes into straightening alone amounts to around 30,000 hours.
We save around half of that time by using lasers and can immediately begin the next
processing phase without the cumbersome straightening work.”
ARTISTIC LASER TECHNOLOGY FOR DELICATE SEAMS
Standing in front of one of these ships is impressive: a giant yacht or fast cruise ship
is as high as a big house or even an office building, and in principle both are designed
and built with the same goals in mind, namely relative lightness combined with stability, maneuverability and an ability to move through the water with as little resistance
as possible.
This has a considerable impact on the materials that have to be used. They must
be lightweight, yet extremely tough and very thin.
Looking under the hull of one of these floating wonders, you immediately recognize the intricate network of watertight compartments and lateral bulkheads that
are connected in a wing assembly, an interwoven set of transverse and longitudinal
division bulkheads that are laid out in a fairly simple design but are complex to produce. When the two carbon-dioxide lasers do their precision work, lighting up like the
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LASERS
LASERS
87
Laser imprint without tolerance
sun, they achieve a level of precision that cannot be achieved by humans but only by
sensor-controlled machines. Human beings have not become superfluous, but their
function is reduced to controlling the process taking place before their eyes in the
control room.
Kahl offers a technically precise definition: “We use special types of steel with a
specific chemical make-up. The laser’s imprint on these types of steel is highly compromised in a tiny amount of space.” What that means is that shrinking is hardly noticeable and that the cooling speed is extremely high; increases in hardness are almost imperceptible. The highly concentrated laser beam causes a minimal thermal
burden, which also minimizes the warping of the steel sheet.”
Kahl has a plethora of impressive comparisons up his sleeve. Next to each other
are joints and profiles, several of them welded using traditional welding equipment
and the other using laser technology. It is as though one was done by a butcher, the
other by a surgeon. The traditional seam is uneven and rough, the laser-welded seam
delicate and even artistic.
THE STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITY FOR PRE-ASSEMBLY
So is all of this new? Kahl admits that the shipbuilding industry needed many more
years to implement laser technology than did other sectors, such as automotive production, which long ago adapted it to its needs. Research institutes and universities
did pioneering development work, and Blohm + Voss took the results and built “what
is currently the state-of-the-art facility for pre-assembly work,” according to Kahl.
“The components of maximum dimensions, 4 x 12 meters, weigh around 9 tons.”
Imagine that the beams weighed 16 tons, and the overlying component parts an
additional 10 tons. The laser facility requires flying optics with a fixed portal and three
moveable work pieces as well as a positioning and a stretching portal. The laser-beam
sources, in contrast, are stationary. Kahl stresses one effect: the quality of welding proI-seam on T-end, then simultaneously
laser-welded – that’s how the profiles end
up on the steel plate. The deep-welding
effect achieves a full attachment between
plates and ribs. “You won’t find a more
stable welding seam,” says Alfred Kahl,
head of shipbuilding at Blohm + Voss.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
files on coated steel plates. The expert knew immediately:
I-seam on T-end, simultaneously laser welded: that’s what
it’s about, and Kahl produces some pictures and charts
that illustrate the difference compared to conventional fillet
welds. While this method only joins the corners, the lasers
work much more intensely on the materials.
“With the deep-welding effect, we achieve a full attachment between plates and ribs,” says Kahl. “You won’t
find a more stable welding seam. Germanische Lloyd has
certified this technology for us.”
A surgeon’s precision for products whose surfaces
can cover a whole field – that is the attractiveness of laser
technology in shipbuilding. With this, following Kahl’s
words, lightweight construction has finally made it into the
world of “fast ships.” When you think that each ship can
have 200 kilometers, or about 125 miles, of laser-beam
seams spread across an area of 60,000 square meters,
you can imagine the powerful dimensions. “The laser will
take care of it,” you might be tempted to say. But what
does that mean? Here nothing has to be straightened
warm or with a flame, since angle shrinkage, buckling and
bending are things of the past.
When the laser does its blindingly bright work on the
panels, everything fits to a T. But when it comes to tolerance, the laser doesn’t give any slack. Because tolerance
and precision production are two things that don’t fit to7
gether. Not one little bit.
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VIM FURNACE
Super alloys of
unrivaled purity
The vacuum induction melting furnace
(VIM) of ThyssenKrupp VDM in Unna is the
premier address in Europe for production
materials with extreme characteristics
By Dieter Vogt | Illustrations Tobias Wandres
here are, in fact, more precious objects than the precious metals
that adorn the necks and wrists of women. Very pure alloys, which
are not worn with evening dress, are even more refined and sophisticated. Most have unknown names and will never be as prominent
as gold or silver, but these high-performance materials fulfill crucial
tasks at critical technological interfaces in equipment including automotive catalysts, aircraft engines, television sets and flue gas desulfurization plants.
T
TWO-HUNDRED-AND-SIXTY CREATIONS ON OFFER
Giesserstrasse (Casters’ Street) and Formerstrasse (Formers’ Street),
two addresses on the outskirts of Unna, reflect the prominence of the
steel industry in the city just east of Dortmund, in Germany’s RhineRuhr industrial region. From the outside it is impossible to tell that the
blue works halls are Europe’s premier address for special alloys, yet the
Unna smelting plant is ThyssenKrupp VDM GmbH’s specialty kitchen.
Alloys emerge from the fusion of different metals – sometimes two,
sometimes a dozen, with the aim of optimizing some of the elements’
properties or generating entirely new ones. Again and again, the key
demand is that the alloys should withstand mechanical, thermal or
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VIM FURNACE
The Unna plant has only been
operating for a short time.
Under aerospace conditions, the
material is smelted in the furnace.
The vacuum process within the
furnace ensures that the alloys
are free of unwanted impurities.
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VIM FURNACE
chemical strains, and occasionally all three at the same time. The Unna
smelter turns out no fewer than 260 alloys, and with research and development continuing this number looks certain to increase. Nickel and
cobalt, two heavy metals, are the dominant basic elements.
The Unna plant, which was opened by Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke in 1972, has changed along with the rest of the world over the
past three decades. Its latest step into the future took place only weeks
ago, when, for about €15 million, or a little more than $18 million, Unna
obtained a vacuum induction melting furnace; this apparatus is known
by the experts as a “VIM furnace,” short for vacuum induction melting.
The simple word furnace does not, however, really do justice to this 30meter-long, 12-meter-high plant with an installed power load of 7,000
kVA. The metal construct is accessible via staircases and platforms,
and the automatic melting and casting processes can be observed and
controlled via monitors in the elevated helmstand.
The actual furnace, the core of the plant, can be charged with
solid or liquid material, and its 30-ton capacity is the biggest of any
such facility in Europe. Indeed, with temperatures of up to 1,750 degrees Celsius, the material is melted under conditions that seem positively unearthly. Like a smooth soup, the pool crater has to be stirred,
something that is done by an electro-magnetic mixer, while the vacuum
allows for alloys that are free of oxygen, nitrogen and other unwanted
impurities. After the casting, the molten mass is poured into transportable chill molds for cooling.
The resulting metal blocks do not yet represent the final stage of
purity, however. Some materials have to pass through the fire three
times: this means that two remelting plants in Unna are used to further
purify, homogenize and refine the material. The end products are highly pure super alloys that can be used in equipment such as turbine
blades in steel drives, where a long lifecycle at high temperatures under
extreme centrifugal force is required.
ALLOYS WITH EXOTIC-SOUNDING NAMES
For physicists, alloys are what thoroughbred horses are to breeders,
and when reading the long list of creations you encounter such exotic
names as Nicorros, Nimofer, Pernifer, Conicro, Cunifer and Magnifer.
These are, of course, merely artificial names put together from the
chemical signs of the involved metals – Ni standing for nickel, Cro for
chrome, and Fer for iron. The alloy Nicrofer 5219 consists of no fewer
than 11 elements, including iron and molybdenum, although nickel and
chrome are the most important ones, with 52 percent and 19 percent,
respectively.
What has not changed in the Unna smelter over all these years is
the so-called labeling of the material: before and after the fire. There
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VIM FURNACE
must be no mix-up, so not one of the metal blocks stored in the smelter
hall and the yard is without a nametag.
What flows from the casting chute into the furnace is processed
into strips, bars, wires, sheets and foils, though this does not happen
immediately in Unna. Some materials leave the building as glowing
blocks in special transporters – they take with them part of the immense
heat energy through which they were created. Further processing is a
competition against temperature: in the Duisburg plant the chrome
steel blocks are rolled into plates measuring 8 to 9 meters, though that
is only a transitory stage. After that, the plates are transported to
Ruhrort for sanding and then to the Bochum plant, where they are
processed into four-millimeter-thick strips – at a residual temperature
that remains at 300 degrees Celsius.
A MATERIAL THAT REVOLUTIONIZES THE AUTOMOTIVE WORLD
The final product – Aluchrom 7AI YHF – is a new creation that emerged
from a federal research product and was awarded the environmental
protection prize by the BDI, Germany’s main industrial association. The
material, which is amalgamated with such foreign elements as yttrium
and hafnium, is used to produce foils with a thickness of 30 to 40 micrometers. These are key components of modern metal catalysts for automotive engines, which have considerable advantages over ceramic,
the classical carrier material; thanks to their fast heating, they are al-
ready fully effective in the start phase. The products concocted in Unna
are among the most precious around, and are turned out in significant
volumes. In 2002, more than 32,000 tons of nickel basis alloys were
supplied, a third each to Germany, Europe and the United States. In the
nickel segment, which was launched with coinages in the mid-19th century, ThyssenKrupp VDM is the world market leader. Added to this must
be about 5,000 tons of special precious steels per year. Unna even helps
ensure a pleasant evening in front of the television, since high-value
shadow masks in cathode ray tubes are made of the special alloy
Pernifer 36; they resemble a sieve with holes spaced 20 micrometers
apart, a magnitude that the human eye basically cannot perceive. The
material hardly stretches under high temperatures and thus allows for
the creation of sharp color dots on the screen. Pernifer 42, meanwhile,
serves as a carrier material for integrated switches, while Conicro 5010
W is a heat-resistant material used in the thrusters of the Ariane rocket.
The director of the Unna works, Dr. Jürgen Loh, who holds a doctorate in engineering, is a very competent guide through the amazing
maze of high-performance materials, and one who enjoys painting the
possibilities of the future. Crofer 22 APU, he points out, is an entirely
new iron-chrome alloy characterized by tremendous heat resistance,
conductivity and a low stretch coefficient – an ideal material for the serial production of fuel cells, the revolutionary power system expected to
revolutionize the automotive world.
7
Alloys from the finest smelter
The materials with the
toughest requirements have
to go through the fire three
times - only then do they reach
the highest level of purity.
What flows from the casting
chute into the furnace
is processed into foils, bands,
bars, wires and sheets.
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STAINLESS
Stainless steel put
to practical use on the
dining table, in the form
of gleaming cutlery
Stainless steel is
the ideal material for
surgeons, who require
clinical purity and
sterility for their surgical
instruments
A material
for the future
Stainless steel has a long and
unbroken tradition. Applications can
be found in all areas of life
By Christa Klein
Thanks to its
precisely manufactured
surface shape, the
NIROSTA® membrane concave
mirror makes very effective
use of solar energy
groundbreaking invention became a world-renowned brand –
NIROSTA®, an acronym standing for NIcht ROstender STAhl, the
German term for rust-resistant steel. The patent was registered
by the Fried. Krupp company as early as 1912 for the manufacture of
rust-resistant steel, and its sale under the NIROSTA® brand started 10
years later, in 1922. Around the same time, Thyssen also started to
manufacture rust-resistant steels, and the two companies cooperated
in founding the Deutsche Edelstahlwerke AG in 1927.
The triumphant march of rust-resistant metallic materials dates
back to this time, and has continued without interruption to this day.
ThyssenKrupp Stainless is one of the few providers worldwide that can
boast a complete range of rust-resistant stainless steel, basic nickel alloys and titanium. Rust-resistant stainless steel, in particular, has developed a special allure and is found in a variety of everyday applications: NIROSTA® is used for custom-made consumer goods, industrial
applications, and in architecture. The surface of this stainless steel is
aesthetically pleasing, and found frequently in homes, while the material’s particular advantage in medical applications and in the food and
tobacco industry lies in its resistance not only to rust but to heat. The
products’ corrosion-resistance is accompanied by the highest possible
level of purity and cleanliness.
Stainless steel has long become a symbol in itself, a material that
mirrors and reflects the modern world in a perfect combination of elegance and practicality. Would the spectacular roof of the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, covered in rust-resistant steel in 1929, have otherwise become so famous? Or remained known around the world for
more than seven decades?
Stainless steel will continue to fire the imagination of designers
and architects as well as material specialists who are steadily working
on extending its areas of application. For if this material owns something, it is the future.
A
“Form follows function”
– a principle that is
also true in the case of
the stainless steel chair,
which combines both
safety and beauty
The architect Frank O’Gehry
raised a monument to
stainless steel at the Neue
Zollhof harbor front
development in Düsseldorf
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STAINLESS
93
Hygiene is
indispensable for
food producers,
and stainless steel
guarantees it better
than any other
material
Chemical processing
technology needs stainless
steel, which boasts
a high level of both
strength and formability
Chefs like stainless
steel casserole pans
because of their high
heat resistance
Using stainless steel
is an art, and some
designers put it to
very creative uses
The manufacture
of complicated household
applications out of
stainless steel does not
present any problems, even
in automated production
The corrosion resistance
of stainless steel presents
an advantage for washer
drums, because even
aggressive detergents
do not corrode NIROSTA®
Fans of Alessi
objects will fondly
remember Aldo Rossi,
the designer who
brought this applied art
form into households
Automotive manufacturers
like the stability and
light weight of rust-resistant
stainless steels for
various applications
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
94
MAGNESIUM
Magnesium is a demanding
material, and is dangerous
only in its liquid form. In fact,
magnesium sheets are much
less flammable than many
other vehicle components.
MAGNESIUM
The lightweight
among basic materials
Magnesium has a future – as long as
magnesium sheets can be made price-competitive
By Sybille Wilhelm | Photos Thomas Balzer
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96
MAGNESIUM
A sustainable material
The main advantage of
using magnesium in car
bodies? Its lightness reduces
overall vehicle weight,
allowing for significant
reductions in fuel consumption
and emissions.
MAGNESIUM
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MAGNESIUM
s a mineral, it is an insider’s tip against a hangover, since magnesium taken promptly after a night of too much drinking will
soothe most aching heads. In fact, this is one material on which
the human organism greatly depends: the roughly 25 grams of magnesium found in an adult body is essential to more than 300 biochemical reactions, among them muscle and nerve functions, keeping the
heartbeat stable, and strengthening bones.
In medicine, magnesium has been known for several centuries,
with such compounds as Epsom salts being used as a traditional cure.
About 250 years ago, the British chemist Joseph Black also discovered
the metal’s elementary character, with magnesium later being given the
atomic number 12 in the periodic table and shortly thereafter the abbreviation Mg.
The fact that magnesium is also a material with unique properties,
however, was not discovered until about 80 years ago. No other known
metal is as light – even a comparable aluminum sheet weighs a third
more – and as the lightest metallic construction material around, by a
large margin, magnesium allows for a diversification into technical
areas not covered by steel.
A
COMPARING FAVORABLY TO OTHER MATERIALS
With materials, three things matter above all: strength in relation to its
thickness, formability and adjustability, explains Bernhard Engl, managing director of Magnesium Flachprodukte GmbH (MgF), a part of the
ThyssenKrupp Steel group headquartered in the university town of
Freiberg, Saxony. Compared to other materials, magnesium performs
particularly well with regard to these factors in many applications: for
example, when used on large construction elements, above all in sheet
form. Much therefore speaks in favor of using magnesium as a material for car bodies, says Engl.
And magnesium in car bodies means environmental protection,
since, according to a U.S. study, the use of magnesium sheets can re-
Magnesium has very special
characteristics. For one,
no other known metal is
as light. This important fact
alone is enough to encourage
research and development
into more future uses
for this material.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
MAGNESIUM
duce a car’s weight by about 100 kilograms, resulting in better fuel
economy and less pollution. Magnesium is not, however, a simple material, and has a relatively low melting and boiling point. When heated
under exposure to air, it burns into magnesium oxide from about 500 degrees centigrade with the characteristic blinding white flame. Still, magnesium only appears hazardous to those who know too little about it, explains Engl, who holds a doctorate in material and forming engineering.
Obviously, the melting and processing center in Freiberg knows
about magnesium’s reaction to extreme heat, and the team has put in
place comprehensive precautionary measures. Liquid magnesium is
processed only in a gas-shielded atmosphere, with three-level security.
Yet magnesium is a problematic material only in its liquid form, whereas a magnesium body is actually less flammable than other vehicle
parts. And when individual components in a car are made of magnesium the material also does not represent a risk, according to Engl; at
a fire, firefighters will initially struggle with materials much more prone
to be ignited.
The precautions that have to be taken in magnesium processing
are therefore not the reason why so few parts in a vehicle are currently
made of magnesium: the reason is that magnesium sheets are still too
expensive.
In fact, only about 1 percent of magnesium produced worldwide is
used in sheets, although there is more than enough magnesium around.
While “Mg” does not exist in its elementary form, but only in compounds,
it is found everywhere, for example in the earth’s crust or in the mineral
dolomite, of which the Dolomite Mountains of northern Italy are made.
And also in the sea: when sea water is desalinated to obtain drinking water, a large amount of magnesium chloride is a by-product, and
by using this refuse to produce magnesium, two birds are killed with
one stone; not only is there no cost for storing or disposing of the
“refuse,” but processed magnesium is every recycler’s dream, since it
can be easily remelted.
A raw material with
no volume problems
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
99
Engl confirms that there is no shortage of magnesium as a raw
material, but because pricing uncertainty renders estimates regarding
the use of magnesium sheets in cars highly unpredictable, one of the
key tasks of the Freiberg research group is to find out at what price
ThyssenKrupp can offer magnesium sheets. Since the company cannot influence the world market price of this material, its research team
has to develop ideas and optimize plant level processes intelligently.
Together with the University of Freiberg, ThyssenKrupp has thus
developed – and filed an application to patent – a casting-rolling technology that allows for the industrial production of top-quality magnesium sheets that can sell for less than the sheets now on the market.
ThyssenKrupp already knows that this is possible, and that its sheets,
with their measurements and consistency, could be put to immediate
use. For at a maximum 1.3 millimeters, the sheets are relatively thin,
but nonetheless stable. The first deep-drawn test components that Engl
can present prove that magnesium components do not have to be cast;
from the technical side, then, nothing stands in the way of using magnesium sheets.
The problem lies on the sales side, because it is the customers
who decide whether magnesium sheets will be accepted in substantial
volume for lightweight assembly and can therefore be offered at prices
that are competitive with other materials. It is precisely this issue,
though, that has so far proven difficult: one would have to know, for example, how many sheets a carmaker would be prepared to buy, and at
what price.
As soon as auto makers fully understand the advantages of this
material, the first manufacturers could be using ThyssenKrupp magnesium sheets in serial production. And when used in the automotive and
aviation industries, the new sheets offer an immense diversity of applications, from hoods, roofs and dash panels to seat pans.
In other words, magnesium is one lightweight that can look for7
ward to a great future.
100
OBERRIED
The Barbara underground
shelter is found in Oberried,
south of Freiburg in the
Breisgau region. It is here
that Germany’s so-called
cultural heritage is stored
in stainless steel containers. The triple white-blue
sign has been awarded just
five times in the world and
only once in Germany: it
indicates that the cultural
goods in Oberried enjoy
special protection.
A storage
gallery blessed
by St. Barbara
By Heribert Klein | Photos Walter Schmitz
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
OBERRIED
101
102
OBERRIED
Archived for ever and ever
The material used to make
these special containers comes
from ThyssenKrupp Nirosta in
Dillenburg. The containers are
subjected to tough standards
because the stored microfilms
have to be protected for centuries
from air, moisture and other
adverse outside influences.
OBERRIED
103
104
OBERRIED
OBERRIED
Safe from all the elements
When the containers arrive
at the shelter entrance,
they have seen daylight for
the last time. Their complex
welding and closing technology
guarantees total insulation
inside the shelter, at a constant
temperature of 10 degrees
centigrade.
105
106
OBERRIED
Surrounded by gneiss and granite
The stainless steel containers are
a treasure cove for the culture
of an entire country. More than
700 million documents are stored
on film in the shiny containers, which
will protect them long into the future
in a safe, controlled environment.
OBERRIED
107
108
OBERRIED
Under the Hague Convention of 1954,
the Barbara underground shelter
is reserved for the storage of objects
with cultural signifigance.
Roland Stachowiak of the Central Office
for Civil Protection ensures that
the cultural documents are safely moved
to their final place of rest.
History’s final
place of rest
othing betrays the existence of the unique treasure of German intellectual life
that is buried deep in the ground, hidden in the middle of a forest in southern
Germany. The white-blue sign behind the barred door is inconspicuous, with
nothing to indicate that cultural goods are kept under special protection here. The visitor almost feels as though he has entered the Kyffhäuser, the maze of caves in which
the Emperor Barbarossa resides, waiting to return.
In reality, the visitor has entered the Barbara underground shelter in Oberried,
near Freiburg. The facility is no less than the “central storage place of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
With his shoulder-length hair, Roland Stachowiak of the Central Office for Civil
Protection may bear some similarity to the medieval red-beard, but in the Barbara
shelter this administrative official charged with the “protection of cultural goods” becomes a tour guide. Wearing a helmet and a yellow jacket he marches ahead, 500
meters (1,650 feet) in all, through air that is 10 degrees centigrade and has a relative
humidity of 75 percent.
“The real storage gallery starts behind this steel door,” Stachowiak says. Once
he has adjusted the combination lock, he needs two strong arms to open the 1.5meter-thick steel door that was built by Thyssen Industries three decades ago. A
few more steps and the treasure trove, 100 meters in length, reveals its treasures.
N
CULTURE IN IN-SITU REINFORCED CONCRETE BEHIND STEEL DOORS
It is, of course, a different kind of treasure trove, and anyone hoping to find invaluable
relics of long-gone eras here will be disappointed. Instead, about 1,300 stainless steel
containers are stored on two levels, firmly closed, and differentiated only by a code.
The containers are filled with films, microfilmed archive material with a unique value
and, according to the sign, “of special significance to German history and culture.”
Each of the containers, which are made of V-2-A stainless steel, contains 24,320 meters of microfilm, meaning that nearly 32 million meters of film showing more than 700
million documents are stored in this shelter below the Schauinsland hills.
The project appears strange, almost spooky, but Stachowiak stresses just how
serious it is. “The Hague Convention of 1954 is an international agreement for cultural protection,” he explains. “The Federal Republic of Germany signed the convention
in 1967. The first documents were stored in the Barbara underground shelter in 1975.
The gallery itself was lined with in-situ reinforced concrete and secured with pressure
doors. From the start, very high technical demands were applied to the steel containers. After all, the microfilms in the containers had to be protected from adverse out-
side influences.” Anybody wishing to find out more about
these containers has to travel quite a distance from the
shelter – to the small town of Haiger, about a 90-minute
drive north of Frankfurt, where the UCON company makes
the containers. Klaus Kettner, responsible for sales of remolding technology at UCON, apparently knows every last
detail about his company’s highly sophisticated cylindrical container, as he calls it.
“We procure the pre-cut parts from ThyssenKrupp
Nirosta in Dillenburg,” just a few kilometers down the
road, he says. “The material has to be suitable for deep
drawing, with a high heat treatment. At a depth of 350
millimeters per side, we have to draw a relatively deep
corpus for the upper and lower parts. It is important that
the material does not break during the drawing process
without annealing. For this purpose, we have built special
tools that are unique to our company. Thanks not least to
this exclusivity, we have supplied the containers for the
Barbara storage facility in Oberried for many years.”
It is a matter of course that the containers are stored
in airtight and climate-controlled conditions in the shelter.
No sound from the noisy outside world enters, and apart
from the staff and some experts few people come around
to this hidden cultural treasure. The strict simplicity of the
area, which receives heavy snowfall in the winter, can be
impressive – the philosopher Martin Heidegger (18891976) called the region a “creative landscape” where “all
of this pushes and shoves and swings through everyday
existence up there.”
Could there be any better place for culture to take a
rest, in line with DIN standards for at least 500 years? Stachowiak asks rhetorically. The micro films may even last
for 1,500 years, he says, adding laconically that “we certainly won’t be able to check that.”
From the start, provisions were made to ensure that
the microfilms remain undisturbed from all outside
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
OBERRIED
sources of disturbance. Even if no one uses the term “atomic bomb security” here,
Stachowiak notes that the surrounding granite and gneiss rock is highly resistant, that
there is an overflight ban applying to military jets, and that tanks must not come within five kilometers, or about three miles. And, as this official in charge of the storage
area likes to point out, “We place great value on the top quality of our containers.”
Indeed, Klaus Kettner’s outline of the closure technology alone provides a hint
of the sort of quality standards required of containers that have to resist high pressure; the stainless steel flanges are welded on the inside and the outside, a nut is
worked into them, and a copper ring is placed in the nut. “We used to use a rubber
ring, but that was too soft and became porous,” says Kettner. So they tested rings
made from composition rubber, but those tore and dissolved.
“Today,” adds Kettner, “we use pure copper insulation. The copper is rounded
and welded at both ends, creating a slight bulge that is calibrated. The weld seam has
to perfectly match the diameter in the original material. Only thus can we ensure total
insulation.”
In the end, everything is bolted together, and should remain sealed for several
centuries. If a container has to be opened, the ring will have to be renewed because
it is destroyed in the process. “It is a relatively complicated production process that
requires a lot of manual skill,” Kettner says.
Deep inside the mountain, there is no hint of that, only that the containers stored
here today differ from their predecessors insofar as the latter were marked by a lot of
welding seams. Their successors’ exterior intactness also applies to the interior. Sixteen rolls, each containing 1,520 meters of microfilm, can be stored on the “pie crusts”
in a stainless steel container, effectively forever. As a sample for inspection, color
copies of archived documents have been placed on a few containers. If, far in the future, someone wants to know more about the Peace of Venice in 1174, the title page
of the Golden Bull of King Wenceslas of 1400, the Basic Rights of the German People
according to the Empire Administrator Johann or Emperor Frederick August I’s call for
public tenders on June 27, 1694, the answers will be found in the Barbara shelter.
STEEL CONTAINERS FOR ‘THE LAND OF POETS AND THINKERS’
Which leads to the “why” question. The German Interior Ministry provides just €3 million for this type of archiving per year, which Stachowiak, without a trace of smugness,
describes as a laughable sum for the self-styled “land of poets and thinkers.” He considers it a duty to carefully preserve cultural goods for future generations, an effort
that needs to be thought through on a long-term basis immune from short-term mon-
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
109
etary concerns, specifically the German government’s
cash crunch. “For years I have tried to point out what is at
stake here, but the response from the federal and state
ministries in charge of cultural protection leaves much to
be desired,” Stachowiak says, somewhat resigned, because the shelter is such a remarkable project: the triple
white-blue sign has been awarded just five times worldwide – and only once in Germany.
A HERITAGE LASTING 1,000 YEARS
The notion that digital archiving technologies will render
this sort of storage area superfluous is rejected outright
by Stachowiak. Together with the Fraunhofer Institute for
physical measuring technology, the Central Office for Civil
Protection is working on transferring digital data onto analog color film, because film lasts much longer than digital
data carriers. And, he adds, the Internet would allow for
the current usage of filmed archived material if this idea
were put into practice. The fees for electronic representation on the Web would amortize a considerable share of
the costs of archiving in Oberried, he says.
So the Barbara shelter will be needed for a long time
yet, and demand for its services may even grow. UCON
will be happy to hear that more containers will be needed
from 2004, to accommodate the microfilming of more library contents. The expert for the protection of cultural
heritage points out that a second storage gallery will have
to be opened up in the near future – for the sake of a future that preserves the past: in the dark, optimally air-conditioned, earthquake resistant, and surrounded by stainless steel. One that will last 500 or 1,000 years, maybe
even 2,000 years or longer.
It is therefore reassuring to learn that, unlike in the
legend, there is no Barbarossa here who could leave the
underground gallery to cause mischief among the people
7
above.
110
GLOSSARY
Basic materials at a glance
What differentiates them and how many are nonetheless interlinked
Ores are minerals that are so loaded
with usable metal that they are suitable for
metal generation. These ores, however,
do not contain only the usable metals or
their chemical compounds, but also other
minerals (e.g. lime or quartz).
Iron ores. The most important iron ores are
iron-oxygen compounds such as magnetite,
hematite and limonite (pyrite and iron pyrites
are iron-sulfur compounds). They are used
to gain iron through smoke firing with carbon
in blast furnaces. Coke is commonly used
for this purpose. The ferrous oxides are
cogged with fluxes such as sand or limestone so that these, together with the
remaining ores, form a slag that can easily
be separated from the crude iron.
Crude iron. The crude iron that
leaves the blast furnace is very hard and
brittle and cannot be formed mechanically.
The reason: crude iron, which consists
of 90 percent iron, also contains up to
5 percent carbon and other impurities
such as manganese (2 percent), silicone
(1 percent), phosphorus (0.3 percent) and
sulfur (0.4 percent).
Slags. A slag is the mixture formed
from ores and flux in the blast furnace
process. It consists, among other
things, of silicic acid, metal oxides and
lime. Because of its lower density, the
slag floats on the liquid crude iron and
solidifies into a hyaline mass after cooling.
Slags are either disposed of or processed
into blast furnace concrete. As so-called
stabilized slag (which is processed into
LiDonit® through the combination of oxygen
and quartz sand), it is also used in road
construction as a surface cover with a high
level of grip and resistance.
Steel. Steel is a concept covering a large
group of iron materials, which thanks to their
good processing properties and durability
count among the valuable production materials. If impurities are largely removed from
crude iron and the carbon content is reduced
to at most 2 percent, the result is malleable
iron commonly known as steel. Carbon is an
important alloy element of steel. Even small
amounts of it influence the malleability and
hardness of steel. Today, there are about
2,000 different types of steel, which can be
divided into two major groups according to
their chemical consistency and characteristics of use. Categorized by their chemical
consistency, there are alloy and non-alloy
steels. Categorized by application, there are
basic steels, carbon steels and stainless
steels.
Stainless steel. In 1912, the company
Fried. Krupp obtained the first-ever patent for
the production of rust-resistant steel. From
this time, rust-resistant stainless steel was
supplied around the world. Since 1922, rustresistant stainless steel has been marketed
under the NIROSTA® brand, an abbreviation
for the German translation of rust-resistant
steel. In the case of stainless steel, the physical and chemical characteristics are improved by other alloy metals, so-called steel
grafters. Chrome contributes to corrosion resistance and increases hardness. Together
with nickel it improves corrosion resistance
(NIROSTA®). Molybdenum and tungsten increase heat resistance so that the steel remains solid even in red heat. Vanadium improves solidity, while manganese reduces
the abrasion from steel tools. Depending on
the carbon content and added metals, the
different stainless steels also sport different
characteristics. ThyssenKrupp Stainless offers all rust-resistant metallic materials: rustresistant stainless steel, basic nickel alloys
and titanium.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
GLOSSARY
Titanium is the ninth most common element in the earth’s crust, accounting for
0.6 percent of its overall volume. It is,
however, widely dispersed and found only
in small concentrations, usually in ironbearing ores. Today there are two categories of titanium: Commercially pure titanium, which includes less than 1 percent
other elements such as oxygen, carbon
and iron, and conventional titanium containing up to 20 percent of these elements.
Titanium has numerous applications, including automobiles, medical technology
and even jewelry. It is extremely corrosion
resistant, strong at minimal thicknesses,
and stands up very well to mechanical and
thermal stress .
Aluminum is a silver-white light metal that
is particularly corrosion-resistant thanks to
a surface oxide layer formed through combination with air. Due to its high oxygen
affinity, aluminum does not exist as a
metal in its pure form, but it is the earth’s
most common metal within compounds,
making up about 8 percent of the earth’s
crust. Despite its prevalence, it was only
discovered as a metal in 1827, because its
preparation is technically very difficult. Aluminum’s favorable strength-to-density
ratio delivers strength with low weight and
makes it indispensable in aviation and vehicle technology.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
111
Magnesium is a shiny silver (base) light
metal that burns into magnesium oxide in a
glaring white light. When in contact with air it
forms an impermeable cover of magnesium
oxide and thus protects the magnesium from
further oxidation. In nature, it exists in
mineral magnesium compounds, for example in magnesite and dolomite or in
dissolved form in sea water. Magnesium and
magnesium alloys are now used as
versatile basic materials.
Polycarbonate is a so-called thermoplastic
and belongs to the group of technical synthetics. It was first produced by H. Schell at
Bayer in 1953 and from 1958 was used in
industrial production. Similarly, D.W. Fox, a
General Electric employee, discovered polycarbonate, which was then also produced industrially by General Electric. In concrete
terms, polycarbonate is part of the group of
polyesters. Among its special characteristics
are crystal-clear transparency and extraordinarily high dart impact strength. It can be
nailed and screwed without splintering – at
temperatures from -40 to +115 degrees
centigrade. It is very well suited to being
used as a protective material in industrial
settings or as side and rear windows in vehicles; it is transparent, like glass, yet highly
resistant to even heavy impacts. Polycarbonate has a long lifecycle with high and durable
color fastness, is resistant to petroleum
products, oils and fats, and its electrical insulation characteristics are very good. Not
only is polycarbonate far more shatter-proof
than glass, but because of its lower specific
weight it can be handled more easily.
ckl
112
PUBLICATIONS
ThyssenKrupp Magazine
To order a copy of current or past
editions of ThyssenKrupp Magazine,
please visit www.thyssenkrupp.com
and click on “Publications” in the
service-navigation area.
Sustainability was the theme uniting all the topics covered in the entire edition of the Thyssen
Krupp Magazine that appeared before year’s
end. The issue contained a number of examples
illustrating how ThyssenKrupp works on sustainability while maintaining a future-oriented approach: hydroforming uses water pressure to
form the hardest steels, and the new FR30 steel
resists fire for half an hour; the concept of the
TWIN elevator (two elevator cabs arranged one
above the other in the same shaft) is revolutionizing the way elevators operate; and new sheet
piling stabilizes dikes over long periods. All
these examples prove one thing: ThyssenKrupp
develops products that save resources, energy
and money. As you can see, at ThyssenKrupp
we keep the goal of sustabinability in the forefront of everything we do.
ThyssenKrupp Magazine
“If you want to get things moving, you had better get moving yourself”
was the motto for the ThyssenKrupp Magazine edition that appeared in the
summer of 2003. As the Chairman of the Executive Board, Prof. Dr. Ekkehard
D. Schulz, put it: “We have to bring movement into thinking.” You can find out
what he means in the issue’s 20 articles, which profile such diverse innovations as an escalator up a mountainside in Toledo, the ultimate in yachts from
Blohm + Voss, a water roller coaster with ThyssenKrupp-built steel pylons,
and large anti-friction bearings from Rothe Erde that do the most technically
sophisticated milling jobs. Other examples of how the company is delivering
innovation? In Asturia, we are developing a moving walkway that changes
speeds; in England, our rails are an integral part of a new high-speed rail
line, and in Scotland we are restoring the legendary Forth Rail Bridge.
Through its unique expertise ThyssenKrupp is becoming an indispensable
partner for auto makers, not least thanks to Simultaneous Engineering techniques that save time and money. We are also the most important partner in
a very different line of endeavor – as tour sponsor for the German cult band
PUR. A profile of the group’s lead singer, Hartmut Engler, also makes for interesting reading in the summer 2003 edition of the ThyssenKrupp magazine.
Publisher: ThyssenKrupp AG, Dr. Jürgen Claassen, August-Thyssen-Strasse 1, 40211 Düsseldorf, Telephone: +49 211-824-0
Project Management: Dr. Heribert Klein (responsible for editorial content) • Art Director: Peter Breul
Project Management at ThyssenKrupp: Barbara Scholten
Editorial address: Redaktionsbüro Dr. Heribert Klein, Wichernweg 8, 65549 Limburg,
Telephone: +49 6431 47610, Fax: +49 6431 408916, e-mail: H.Klein@teliko.net
Writers: Rüdiger Abele, Benedikt Breith, Sebastian Groß, Christa Klein, Carsten Knop, Sybille Wilhelm, Dieter Vogt
Proofreading and Picture Editor: Christa Klein • Layout: Esther Rodriguez
Publishing House: F.A.Z.-Institut für Management-, Markt- und Medieninformationen GmbH,
Mainzer Landstraße 195, 60326 Frankfurt am Main, Telephone: +49 69–75 91-0, Fax: +49 69–75 91-1966
Managing Directors: Dr. Gero Kalt, Volker Sach, Peter Steinke
Lithography: Goldbeck Sytem-Litho, Frankfurt am Main
Printing: SocietätsDruck, Mörfelden
The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.
Excerpts may only be reproduced with attribution and if a sample copy is provided.
TK Magazine | 1 | 2004 |
14:28 Uhr
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Werkstoffe
22.01.2004
Das TK
magazin
Das TK Magazin
312741_TK_Titel_1_2003_D_grob
Denken, nachdenken,
ausdenken – ThyssenKrupp
formt aus Rohstoffen
viele Werkstoffe, in jeder nur
denkbaren Form. Die
Faszination im Konzern für
neue Werkstoffe kann man
nicht nur sehen, sondern
spüren, mit eigenen
Händen. Weltweit.