Sunday, February 13, 2022

McMinnville, OR: 1968 Cascade Steel Rolling Mills

(Satellite)

By no means am I going to try to document every mini-mill in the USA. I'm doing this one because this is one of the best photos I have seen on Facebook of an Electric Arc Furnace (EAF). This shows how they can swing the lid aside to make room for the "charge bucket." Note the three electrodes on top of the lid.
Angel Arciga posted
The one that pays the bills
This photo is also available on Page 2 of their manufacturing-process.
[The comments on Angel's post reinforce that the reason we don't see many photos of EAFs in social media is because the employees are not allowed to take photos.]

Dennis DeBruler commented on Angel's post
That photo is also on Page 2 of their web site:
https://www.cascadesteel.com/about/manufacturing-process
That page also has this sequence of the charge being dropped into the furnace.

CascadeSteel
Our products include reinforcing bar (rebar), coiled reinforcing bar, wire rod, merchant bar and other specialty products.

CascadeSteel-profile
They have a five-strand continuous billet caster and one automated rolling mill. They benefit from low power costs. [I assume that is because of all of the hydropower on the Columbia River.]

Page 5 of manufacturing-process
"As the billets move through the continuous caster, they are cut by torches into desired lengths."

Page 8 of manufacturing-process
"The reheated billets exit the reheat furnace and proceed to our rolling mill. The rolling mill consists of a series of "stands," each containing a set of rollers that compress and lengthen the billets and then finish them into the desired shape (i.e., reinforcing bar, wire rod, one of the merchant shapes, etc.). Water is used to keep the equipment from overheating."

Note the big duct on the left side of the lid in the first photo of these notes. That probably aligns with the pollution control ducts we see outside of the plant when the lid is swung back over the furnace.
Mike G., Feb 2020

This is probably the "bag house."
Mike G., Feb 2020

Mike's photos helped me find the EAF building on a satellite map.
Satellite





























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