Keeping Cool, for Safety’s Sake

In an age in which plastics and consumables abound, steel remains highly sought for buildings, art, and vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Just the sound of it – “steel” – is solid. Not surprisingly, steel is a foundational building block for hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders. It doesn’t get heavier duty than that.

Cascade Steel Rolling Mills is based in McMinnville, Oregon and is a Purakal supplier – and a customer. Far from the Midwest, the quintessential source for metals, the company has established a reputation for quality construction rebar, flat and cylindrical bars of steel for industrial applications, and wire rod that’s commonly used in chain link fencing and nails. More in keeping with its Northwest roots is this: All of the steel the mill manufactures is formed from recycled products.

One of the methods Cascade utilizes to produce its steel rebar is an enormous furnace. Large blocks of steel are inserted into the furnace using hydraulic cylinders and heated to 2400 degrees F. Then, the steel is funneled into a forge, forming rebar at a truly blistering pace. Cascade’s original cylinders were manufactured abroad and plagued the mill’s maintenance crew with their unwieldy construction, metric specifications and routine failures. In several cases, the cylinder components failed. Thankfully, no one was injured. Yet it was clearly time for a change: Cascade called on Purakal.

“Throughout the process, we took a step-by-step approach that kept in mind our customer’s needs.”

Our engineering department provided a full redesign of the problem cylinder. The new design greatly enhanced the safety and reliability of the furnace. We chose more application-appropriate materials and construction, and to minimize frustration for the maintenance crew, we opted for standard specs, rather than metric. Essentially, we eliminated all chances of catastrophic failures.

Throughout the process, we took a step-by-step approach that kept in mind our customer’s needs. For example, we provided engineering analysis and a project timeline suitable for the mill to continue production without skipping a beat.

Since the completion of the project, cylinder failure has been eliminated and the time spent on constant maintenance is instead spent on the production of steel – steel that Purakal can put to use for other customers, too.