February 2009: Flash Butt Welder in Pueblo, CO
VAE Nortrak in Pueblo adds additional flash butt welding capabilities
The VAE Nortrak Company recently added $1.8 million in capital equipment to its Pueblo Colorado facility to expand its flash butt welding capabilities for the North American market. This equipment is an open frame style of welding system which makes it capable of welding rail to rail and rail to manganese castings. This is only the second machine utilizing this technology in North America. The other unit is in the VAE Nortrak facility in Birmingham Alabama.
With the addition of this flash butt welding process, VAE Nortrak will continue to expand its market of welded product used in its newest product offerings. The Welded Spring Manganese (WSM) and Welded Boltless Manganese (WBM) frogs are constructed with a casting welded to Stainless Steel which is then welded to the toe and heel rails. Other products such as VAE Nortrak’s Moveable Point Frog (MPF) also utilize rail to rail welding, as do the full line of forged and welded transition rails.
This welding technology utilizes four different vertical hydraulic clamping presses to hold the components in place during welding process. The unit passes high current through these components, generating tremendous heat that causes the mating surfaces to melt. Through various cycles of the press and current flow, the component parts are joined together by this heat through this process called flash butt welding. The tooling and electrodes are kept cool by a chiller system that pumps cooling fluid through these tools. The machine utilizes a programmable micro processor and a weld analyzer system to monitor the process.
To prepare transition rail for welding it was necessary to add a forge cell to Pueblo. This cell is comprised of an induction coil that heats the rail to a malleable condition, a forge that compresses the larger rail down to the size that is being welded, a straightening press and a mill to remove the bulge from the web of the forged rail. The different sizes of rail that are produced in this cell are 141 to 136, 136 to 115, 133 to 115 and 115 to 100.
The flash butt welding system was ordered in August of 2007 and commissioned in Pueblo in December of 2008.
The addition of this equipment doubles VAE Nortrak’s flashbutt welding capacity allowing it to better serve customers with high technology products.
