Английская Википедия:Heavy Press Program

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Шаблон:Short description

Файл:Wyman Gordon 50000 ton press.jpg
The Wyman-Gordon 50,000-ton forging press

The Heavy Press Program was a Cold War-era program of the United States Air Force to build the largest forging presses and extrusion presses in the world. These machines greatly enhanced the US defense industry's capacity to forge large complex components out of light alloys, such as magnesium and aluminum. The program began in 1950 and concluded in 1957 after construction of four forging presses and six extruders, at an overall cost of $279 million. Eight of them are still in operation today, manufacturing structural parts for military and commercial aircraft. They still hold the records for size in North America, though they have since been surpassed by presses in Japan, France, Russia and China.[1][2]

The program produced ten machines, listed below.

Background

Файл:Mesta press east side.jpg
The Alcoa 50,000-ton forging press

The Heavy Press Program was motivated by experiences from World War II. Nazi Germany held the largest heavy die forging presses during the war, and translated this advantage into high performance jet fighters. Because of the shortage of aluminum, German aircraft manufacturers used forged magnesium structural components, formed to shape in closed-die hydraulic presses. The Soviet Union captured the largest German press to survive the war, with a capacity of 33,000 ton, and were suspected to have seized the designs for an even larger 55,000 ton press. The next two largest units were captured by the United States and brought across the Atlantic Ocean, but they were half the size at 16,500 ton. As Cold War fears developed, American strategists worried that this would give the Soviet Air Force a crucial advantage and designed the Heavy Press Program to help win the arms race.[3][4][5]

Seventeen presses were originally planned with an expected cost of $389 million, but the project was scaled back to 10 presses in 1953.[6]

Air Force Lieutenant General K. B. Wolfe was the primary advocate for the Heavy Press Program. Alexander Zeitlin was another prominent figure of the program.

Файл:F15 bulkhead before-after pressing.jpg
Titanium bulkheads for the F-15 jet fighter before and after pressing by the Alcoa 50,000 ton press

Presses

[7] [8]

Capacity
(short tons)
Type of press Built by Operated by Location Began Operation
13,200 extrusion Schloemann Alcoa Lafayette, Indiana 1953[9]
50,000 forging Mesta Machinery Alcoa Air Force Plant 47, 1600 Harvard Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio May 5, 1955
35,000 forging United Engineering Alcoa Air Force Plant 47, 1600 Harvard Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 1955
8,000 extrusion Loewy Hydropress Kaiser Aluminum 1954 Halethorpe Farms Road, Halethorpe, Maryland 1955 (Scrapped 2021 following facility closure by Arconic)
8,000 extrusion Loewy Hydropress Kaiser Aluminum 1954 Halethorpe Farms Road, Halethorpe, Maryland 1955 (Scrapped 2021 following facility closure by Arconic)
8,000 extrusion Loewy Hydropress Harvey Machine Co. Torrance, California May 1946(Scrapped 1992[10])
12,000 extrusion Lombard Corporation Harvey Machine Co. Torrance, California August 1957[11]
(Scrapped 1990s.[11])
50,000 forging Loewy Hydropress Wyman-Gordon Air Force Plant 63, Grafton, Massachusetts October 1955[3]Шаблон:Rp
35,000 forging Loewy Hydropress Wyman-Gordon Air Force Plant 63, Grafton, Massachusetts February 1955[3]Шаблон:Rp
12,000 extrusion Loewy Hydropress Curtiss-Wright Buffalo, New York

Landmark designation

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated the 50,000-ton Alcoa and Wyman-Gordon presses as Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks. The Alcoa press weighs 8,000 tons and is Шаблон:Convert tall. The die table is Шаблон:Convert, and the maximum stroke is Шаблон:Convert.[12]

External links

References

Шаблон:Reflist