pa1778data.pdf

U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 9)
...a struggle is inevitable, and it is a question of the
survival of the fittest. For many years we have seen that
the manufacturer must sell finished articles. One who
attempts to stop halfway will be crowded out... 7
The threat of the Carnegie Steel Company manufacturing
finished steel products prompted the nation's leading financier,
J. Pierpont Morgan, who also controlled the National Tube
Company, to begin negotiations with Carnegie and the nation's
other leading steel companies. As a result, in 1901 the Carnegie
Steel Company merged with the American Steel and Wire Company,
American Steel Hoop Company, and the National Tube Company, among
others, to form the United States Steel Corporation. Because the
new corporation included the primary customers of semi-finished
products produced at Duquesne, plans to construct the nail and
wire mills at the works were abandoned. 8
The ironmaking, steelmaking, and steelshaping facilities at
Duquesne were completely modernized in the first sixteen years
following the creation of the United States Steel Company.
During this period, Duquesne's ironmaking plant became a focal
point in an industry-wide effort to improve "hard driving"
methods through the production of clean blast furnace gas.
Production was restricted by fine particles of flue dust
entrained in the blast furnace gas that passed through the
regenerative hot blast stoves. As the gas burned inside the
stoves, the particles became lodged inside the stoves'
checkerwork, thus constricting and eventually clogging up the
openings which allowed for the passage of gas and cold blast air.
As a result, each stove had to be taken off line for a period of
five or six days every two months for a complete cleaning.
Compounding the problem was the decision of plant managers to use
gas-powered blowing engines in conjunction with the installation
of two additional blast furnaces in 1909. In order for the
engines to operate efficiently on blast furnace gas, the gas had
to be almost completely free of entrained particulate.
Ambrose N. Diehl, superintendent of the blast furnace plant,
overcame these difficulties by designing a wet gas cleaning
system on site in 1909. Originally conducted on the basis of a
four year experiment, the system consisted of a series of nine
pressurized spray towers and a set of four Theisen rotary washers
to which the gas was led in succession after it had left its
respective blast furnace and dustcatcher. During the entire
7 Wall, Andrew Carnegie, 773.
8 Wall, Andrew Carnegie, 774-93; and Robert Hessen, Steel
Titan: The Life of Charles M. Schwab (New York: 1975), 113-18.