ThisWeek CW 10/9/2014
http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2014/10/06/osu-project-tested-companys-creativity-skill.html
When Ohio State University went searching for a company to build a massive new vacuum test chamber for its Aeronautics and Astronautics Research Lab at Don Scott Field, it didn’t have to look far.
Manifold & Phalor in Canal Winchester got the job — a six-month project to produce a 42-ton steel chamber capable of testing large-diameter turbines.
The opportunity to build the $500,000 test chamber grew out of the company’s partnership with General Electric on previous projects with the research lab.
Jeff Fisher, an engineering manager with the company, said the work through GE opened doors for the company to take on this much larger project.
“We’d been working with GE for some other equipment when we were introduced to the idea that this type of testing and testing equipment was on the university’s radar as an upcoming project,” Fisher said.
Manifold & Phalor, originally based in Reynoldsburg, provides machining, fabricating and machine-building services to its customers. It moved into a new 30,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Canal Pointe industrial park in 2010.
The new building — particularly the size of the door openings — along with other specialized equipment, expertise and space, won the company the contract for the test chamber.
“We’ve done more complex systems than this project, but this one was special because of the size of it and its highly specialized material requirements,” Fisher said. “We have an advantage with the large doors and heavy-duty cranes in our shop. The chamber we built required two-inch thick, high-strength steel walls and measured 15-feet tall by 12-feet wide.”
Fisher said the specifications for the materials and construction were important factors in keeping test operators safe, in case a turbine would fail in the test chamber and release shrapnel.
“Normal steel has a yield strength of about 30,000 psi (pounds per square inch) but the steel alloy we used has a strength of 110,000 psi,” he said. “It requires different welding wire and techniques to maintain the weld joints at that strength.
“If a 13-foot diameter turbine, spinning at a few thousand RPMs has an issue and starts breaking apart, they obviously want to contain the shrapnel within the chamber.”
The process for building such a large vacuum chamber included ordering the special steel alloy in partial sections, which were initially welded into hoops and placed on what are known as “tank rollers.”
Tank rollers allow large-scale cylinders such as this to be rotated so that each hoop can then be matched, machined and welded together, Fisher said. Ultimately, once on site, the dished cylinder heads will be attached to the chamber to seal it.
The test chamber is scheduled to be delivered to the Aeronautics and Astronautics Research Lab in December, after which it will be used for research and testing of turbine designs for such major companies as GE and Rolls-Royce, Fisher said.
Prior to delivery, the chamber is getting a fresh coat of scarlet and gray paint.
“The total chamber weight, all in, is about 85,000 pounds,” he said. “Local riggers from Columbus (Atlas Industrial Contractors) have been contracted by the university to move the chamber from our facility and set it in place.”
Fisher said the chamber will be loaded onto a low-boy flatbed trailer — “and we’ll have to tip the chamber on end” — for the trip.
“This was a pretty neat project that really allowed us to stretch our capabilities, which included pairing up our younger guys to really learn new skills from our experienced guys, along with adding the chance to send some folks out for new training,” Fisher said.
“A lot of the time, we’re busy working on cool projects that are behind the scenes, so getting a chance to work on a big, visible project like this for the Ohio State University was a lot of fun.”