pa1778data.pdf
pa1778data.pdf
pa1778data.pdf
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U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS<br />
HAER No. PA-115<br />
(Page 180)<br />
accommodate roof charging, and was moved to the D.P.C. facility.<br />
A new, roof charged, 85-ton furnace was also constructed in the<br />
D.P.C. building. In order to facilitate the new furnaces, a<br />
325'-0" addition to the charging aisle was constructed at the<br />
southern end of the building, and the mould conditioning platform<br />
located along the eastern wall of the pouring aisle's southern<br />
end was converted to a teeming platform. A new mould<br />
conditioning platform was built at the southern end of the<br />
adjacent steel conditioning building. At the same time, a 112'-<br />
0" addition to the pouring aisle was constructed at the northern<br />
end of the building to accommodate the installation of two more<br />
vacuum degassing units. An important result of the expansion was<br />
that it enabled the casting of 110" diameter heavy forging ingots<br />
weighing 480,000 lbs. This was done by successively tapping<br />
heats from the three largest furnaces while the casting process<br />
was in operation. 5<br />
The last of the major changes to the electric furnace<br />
steelmaking system at the Duquesne Works occurred between 1960<br />
and the early 1970s with the installation of air pollution<br />
control equipment. In 1961, a smoke filtering system was<br />
introduced at the electric furnace plant. Developed by the<br />
Corporation's engineering and research division in Monroeville,<br />
PA, the equipment operated much like a giant vacuum cleaner.<br />
Smoke, in theory, from all of the plant's five electric furnaces<br />
was drawn up through a fume-collecting hood located near the roof<br />
of the building by a large fan and pushed through a rough gas<br />
main by a blower into a bag house. Thirty foot long fiber glass<br />
fabric bags filtered out the solid particles from the smoke and<br />
the cleaned gas was exhausted through flues protruding through<br />
the roof of the bag house. Dust collected in the filter bags was<br />
periodically removed by collapsing the bags in individual<br />
compartments while the other compartments continued to operate.<br />
The accumulated particulate was trucked from the plant to a<br />
storage area.<br />
The installation of the aforementioned smoke control<br />
equipment, however, was of limited success. The continued<br />
presence in the local environment of a large percentage of<br />
untreated smoke emitted from the electric furnaces prompted local<br />
environmental groups to conduct a protest campaign against plant<br />
officials in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Partly as a result<br />
of their activities, the Allegheny County Department of<br />
Development reached an agreement with the Corporation for the<br />
installation of additional equipment. County officials agreed to<br />
finance the purchase of additional baghouse equipment through<br />
municipal bonds. For its part, the company agreed to install the<br />
new equipment and lease it from the county. The new system was<br />
put into operation in 1972. 6