9 years I worked on and inside what they call HIP Units.
Hot Isostatic Press.
They are basically a very high heat and high pressure cooker for metal parts.
They can be very dangerous as the residents of CederQ’s original stomping grounds town of Canby Oregon found out the hard way Tuesday.
Before you watch the video, allow me to voice my opinion that the unit that blew was probably a smaller unit. The big ones have a 5 foot inner diameter and are about 20 feet deep.
That is a very big bomb.
If you are like most folks and as I was before I went to work on them, you have no idea what a HIP unit is and how they work.
Here is a good video that explains the process and gives you an idea of what they look like,
Thanks I learned something new today
wow. I had no idea what this was before this. and I grew up around machine shops ! guess this is how a lot of those carbide cutter inserts are made.
Thanks for the video and education. I’d never heard of this process. Of course, anything to do with metal working, welding, and other processes like this are something I find interesting and informative. So many things I’ve never been exposed to and so many more to find.
From the photos at the link it looks like they have 40″ units.
Those run at 15,000 psi don’t they?
https://www.kittyhawkinc.com/inside-kittyhawk-canby-expanding-hip-services-in-oregon/
Well, Hell, if I had been awake enough to read the text at that link I’d have seen that their units are 46′, which should be running at more than 15,000 psi.
It’s the 60-inchers that are 15,000.
Interesting videos. I spent 40+ years in various manufacturing operations, and I don’t recall HIP. So, the old dog gets to learn a new trick.
In your experience, what process failures would lead to a catastrophic fail such as the explosion? Something as simple as the Challenger rocket O-ring? A latent defect, such as stress fatigue, in the chamber walls or fittings?
Its effectively a type of pressure vessel in cyclic service. You’d have fatigue over years of use going up and down in pressure.
Yikes. I’ll add that to electric arc furnace, travelling overhead cranes and high tonnage presses. When the flattening press was working the whole floor shook. Gave me the willies …
TEM deburring machines (thermal energy method) are similar and the ones I’ve run and worked on only had 2-3″ walls on their chambers as they were designed for small parts. Had one crack once but never blow out. Damn, that video was brutal.
When I was about 17, our carpentry crew was building an engineer’s office inside a large machine shop that made sawmill equipment. It was like stepping into a vision of hell: a dozen arc welders, and even more grinders throwing arcs of sparks everywhere. And the noise was indescribable. Gave me a lot of motivation to do anything else.
Visited the Precision Cast Parts facilty NW of Portland, near the River, in the early 1980s. Their largest HIPing furnace was bigger than anything in that video. Was capable of processing the proposed Titanium castings for an Air Force C-141 seconday nozzle refurbishment progam that were greater than five feet in diameter. Talk about a potential bomb if that furnace came appart at pressure.
I had a friend that worked there as the medical officer. He was a nurse and took care of the burns, cuts, crushes until the ambulance snagged him/her and then processed all the workman comp paperwork. When he took a two week vacation I would cover for him.
Sounds like a gigantic pressure cooker…
It certainly is, and SHOULD be treated as a large bomb.
Respect it, screw around with it at your own peril.
Lot of bombs in most manufacturing processes. Enough to wonder why we have so few events.
Safeties – until some Neanderthal bypasses ’em.
Worked at a machine shop and went to the heat-treaters many, many times. Those suckers are huge !
Not as big as the suckers on women with/without make-up….
Don’t go there…
😛