Original subtitles

[narrator] Join us on Tomorrow's World Today,

as we journey through the worlds of inspiration,

creation, innovation and production,

to find the ideas and technologies

that are shaping our future.

On this episode, we visit the world of production,

to explore how ductile iron pipes are made,

and how constantly innovating something

that has been around for millennia

can make a huge difference in our infrastructure.

Did you know that we didn't have running water in the U.S. until the 1800?

Let's join our host, George Davison.

[George] Our ancestors would carry a pail to a water source.

And they would fill it with water

and then carry it back to their homes.

Can you imagine doing that in today's world?

I surely can't, and I don't want to.

Thank goodness for human ingenuity,

because it led to the invention of the pipe.

This invention helped create grids and systems

to carry liquid to and from our homes.

And before big machinery was invented

to install the pipe, we used animals,

like this elephant,

to help with the pipe and then lower it down into the ground.

This type of pipe it's evolved.

Do you know the difference between these two pipes?

This is grey steel pipe, and this is ductile pipe.

Ductile pipe is stronger, lighter, more durable,

and even more cost-effective than its predecessor.

It's also made from over 90% recycled material,

like these old car parts right here.

While piping and infrastructure are used every day,

you probably don't think about it at all,

until one day they stop working.

Look at the size of that pipe.

I'm sending David to Alabama to show you

the latest in innovation in how piping is made.

[David] I'm at the main mill of U.S.

Pipe's headquarters, in Bessemer, Alabama.

And I'm surrounded by scrap metal,

but none of this metal is going to waste.

You see, the steel industry has been recycling steel scrap for more than 150 years.

Today, U.S. Pipe is turning this scrap into ductile iron.

In the 1950, ductile iron pipe became the better alternative

to the cast iron, it's stronger, more durable,

and it just simply lasts longer.

Different linings and coatings have been created

to prevent corrosion and add to its longer life.

I'm meeting with Jeff Mason to learn the chemistry

behind how this is turned into the ductile iron,

our underground infrastructure depends on.

Hey, David!

Jeff! Good to meet you.

Good to meet you, welcome to Bessemer, Alabama.

Thank you, what's the weather like up there?

- Hot and humid, just like down here. - Yeah.

So, I've been standing here for a while,

and I've been noticing a specific chemistry

that has been going on over here.

Could you tell me about that process?

Yes, so, what we've got going on here is,

is we got really two general piles that we're picking from.

And that crane operator is mixing those

in different ratios, somewhat similar like making a cocktail, right?

The cocktail we make here is iron.

And so, today what we're making is this ductile iron,

and we've been making iron pipe here since 1899.

I didn't realize so much went into making ductile iron.

Could you tell me about that process?

Yeah. So, what we're making, right, is ductile iron here.

It starts off as grey iron when we initially melt it,

and grey iron, we're probably familiar with, like,

an old cast iron bathtub, right?

Big and heavy and thick.

Ductile iron came about really in the mid-50s,

where we do additional treatments

downstream in this plant,

so it can be a thinner profile and it can take impact

without fracturing and breaking.

There's a cupula inside, and that's where

we melt that iron down into a molten metal,

and then this feeds two plants on site

that make ductile iron pipe.

And, so, I'm going to walk you through the cupula,

take a look and then we're going to go somewhere

where it's not quite so hot and loud,

and we're going to talk about what we saw.

- Great. - All right, let's check it out.

Yeah.

[David] The process of melting down iron

starts at the top of this cupula,

where scrap metal is loaded.

Cupulas have actually been around since the 7th century.

They're still used today as a mean to melt iron

because of their low cost and simplicity.

Way cooler in here.

What is it? Two million degrees out there?

That's extremely hot out there, isn't it?

Yeah.

We actually keep track of it on this monitor up here,

and right now we're at 2,872 degrees Fahrenheit.

[David] That's hot.

So, when we were out there, I noticed a lot of things.

And the thing I noticed, there were two troughs.

Could you tell me what each trough is for?

Yes, so you got the two troughs.

[Jeff] The main trough is what conveys the iron,

and then we have a diversion trough,

which conveys all the slag away from the iron,

so that allows us to maintain the iron in its purest form.

On top of that, right, we're standing in the control room here,

and this control room in almost real time,

within a five-minute window, monitors what's in that iron

that's pouring to these ladles,

and allows us to make adjustments as needed.

[David] All right.

So, we still have grey iron,

and after this we're going to go check out

when we convert that into ductile iron batty magnesium.

And then we're going to watch the pipe get casted.

- Let's do it. - [Jeff] Let's check it out.

[David] U.S. Pipe has been repurposing steel scrap for over 120 years.

Instead of this scrap ending up in a landfill, they repurpose it

and turn it into ductile iron piping.

So far, we've learned some of the chemistry behind the melting process,

now it's time for the pouring stage.

Okay, David.

So, this is where the magic happens, right?

We're going to take grey iron and we're going to turn it into ductile iron.

So, we have a 10-ton ladle here,

and we're going to pour in magnesium.

So, sitting on the bottom of that ladle is magnesium.

So, you can see all this white flashing heat, right?

That's a reaction happening with the magnesium,

which is changing the grey iron.

And what it's doing is, is it's changing the graphite.

So you've got graphite in it in the form of a plaque.

And it's changing that plaque

into like a nodule or a glass ball.

So, now, with ductile iron, it's much stronger,

much more durable.

And so, with that, let's go watch pipe be made.

[David] Next, the metal is transported by a ladle or a series of ladles,

to the back of a casting machine,

where it's poured into troughs, so that it can be spun

in the mold and cold by water,

which is being sprayed onto the mold.

[Jeff] And so, we're going to keep spinning that

until that pipe cools down enough,

so that it actually shrinks, then can be pulled from the mold.

Wow, man, you weren't kidding.

This is... This radiating heat is a lot.

I know, right?

It still is maintaining temperature over.

So, right now what we're seeing here

is the other side of the pipe end,

which we call the bell end.

And so, this is a sand core which acts as a plug,

which goes in the end, it stops the iron

from coming out the end,

but it also is where our metal shape comes from.

And now, this arm is going to go in, expand,

and it's going to pull that 16-inch pipe right out.

And you'll see on the end, that's the bell

where the spigot inserts into.

So here comes the pipe.

And in three minutes, you went from molten iron,

to a full stick of ductile iron pipe.

[David] This is impressive.

[Jeff] So, now we've got ductile iron.

But it's got one more heat treatment

to make it even more robust and durable,

and that's called annealing.

- So, let's go check that out. - All right.

[Jeff] Okay, so we just took the recently cast pipe,

and now we're going to lift it and bring it over here

into the annealing oven.

So, these pipes were already molten, they were all extremely hot.

Why are you heating it back up?

So, we're doing a secondary heat treatment,

because it's going to make it even more strong and more durable.

We'll bring it back up to 1,750 degrees

and then bring it down to 30 and 50.

It all takes about an hour, and at the end of it,

it's a much more strong and durable, even more ductile pipe.

But, let me show you where the real heat is at.

All right, like I said, this is where the real heat is at,

let's take a look inside this oven.

Hokey-smokey! You're not lying, that's hot!

Yeah, so it's about 1,750 degrees in there.

That pipe is white hot, as we like to call it.

And so, you cook a marshmallow about a second and a half.

[David] I believe it.

So, after about an hour of this, we're done annealing it,

and then we can quench the pipe,

get it down to handling temperature

where we can start to do secondary processes like quality control.

So, moving from the hot side to the cold side.

All right.

It's hot.

This is the end of the annealing oven,

so it's still 1,300 degrees here,

and we're leaving the hot side

and move to the cold side of the plant.

So, what's going to happen is, this pipe is going to leave the annealing oven,

and it's going to roll over into a roller,

and that roller is going to make sure

there's no ovality, that is nice and round for future installation.

And then, immediately after that,

we're going to cool it down in the sprayer,

and that's going to get it down to handling temperatures

so that way we can start to begin our QC process.

So, now we're cooling the pipe down to handling temperatures.

Is this just water, or you have some magic elixir?

No magic as far as I'm aware of.

Just recycled water.

So, everything we do here is on a closed loop, so we don't waste anything.

And so, after this, we start performing our QC.

Okay, so now we're officially in the quality control part of the manufacturing process.

So, what exactly are you looking for in quality control,

and what happens to the product

that doesn't come to that standard?

We're making sure that the pipe itself can hold pressure,

and then we're going to test the material properties of the iron itself.

And anything that fails goes back out to the scrap pile,

gets broken up and re-melted on the cupula.

So, this is the first step,

it's a hydrostatic pressure test.

We take it to 500 psi.

It's all or nothing, if that pipe is ductile, it'll pass.

But if it's not ductile, it'll fracture

and out to the scrapyard it goes.

After that, we then start testing the iron itself,

making sure it meets the standards we say it does,

and then it goes to cement lining.

So, we're going to go check cement lining.

Let's go.

So, all this pipe has quality control.

Now, once we're done with that,

we bring it over here to cement lining.

[David] Cement? Why do you use cement?

Cement actually has two benefits.

One, it's a corrosion barrier from the iron and the water,

but second, it can help balance water chemistry

in a harsh water environments.

That completely makes sense to me,

so are there other materials you can use besides cement?

There are, so we got, um,

a epoxy lining is one, and a glass lining

among several others, but those are the main two.

And those are, you know, more like

for waste water environments or sludge.

But, let's go walk over there and see a little bit closer.

Yeah.

Full out here, but you can see that there's a lance,

and there's actually two of them, we do two at a time.

And those lances go inside the pipe that's spinning.

And that lance injects cement, slurry into the pipe.

And it gives it a nice, equal thickness

throughout the entire length of the pipe.

The target is, anywhere from the 16 to 1/8 of an inch there.

We have a clear angle here of the pipe rotating,

and that lance is injecting cement

while that pipe is spinning,

and we get that even thickness.

[David] So, what's happening here? I see a lot of water.

[Jeff] Yeah, it might look like we're washing the cement out of it,

but what we're really doing is cleaning that bell cavity.

The gasket fits into that bell cavity,

and that has to be clean, because that gasket

has to hold pressures up to 350 psi.

[David] I see the pipes entering the oven.

What is that for?

[Jeff] This is what we call a curing tunnel.

And so, what it is, is high temperature,

high humidity, and that allows the cement to dry without cracking,

and the whole process only takes about an hour,

which normally would take much longer.

High humidity keeps the cement from drying out, because then it cracks.

So, this humidity keeps the moisture within the cement.

Okay, so we got done with our lining process.

And right after that, we're on to our coating process.

So, I assume just like the interior has different linings,

that the exterior will have different coatings

depending on the purpose of the pipe?

Yes, so what's occurring right now is our standard shop coat.

But outside of that, for additional corrosion protection,

if you want it to be, you know, 150+ service life,

what we can do is add a zinc coating.

On top of that, we have multiple other specialized coatings

for specialized applications.

But, after this, we're kind of at the end.

We're going to bundle it and we're going to ship it,

and it's off to its end user.

So, follow me and we'll go see it.

All right, we're at the end of the line here, right?

So now we're at bundling and packaging.

You know, one of the things I've enjoyed most

in my time here,

is just seeing the growth that I've seen,

the automation in this mill was way different than what I saw in the last.

Yeah, so this mini mill here is a much newer mill, right?

So, with that, we're able to take advantage

of a lot of the new current technologies.

And those technologies like this arm,

where it picks it up and turns it, right?

That makes it more efficient and safer,

as that's really important to us.

And so, that's it, and now we're off to shipping,

and then it gets to go to its final home.

- Sounds great. - All right.

[Jeff] This is the yard,

this is where all the finished product comes

until we ship it to its final destination.

Ductile iron pipe has always been a material of choice

because of it durability and long life.

We think that municipalities and owners

are starting to especially realize that

the word resilience and reliability

mean more now as we start to see higher density living,

and know that it costs a lot to put a pipe in the ground.

We anticipate that the ductile iron market will continue to grow

as people realize that the materials that they choose

do have an impact on service life.

[David] Jeff, I've had such an insightful trip.

I've seen engine blocks being melted down,

becoming finish pipe and everything in between.

I know Vik's meeting George in Pittsburg,

and that's where I'm headed.

Well, we love being a part of this industry,

and we hope that you've enjoyed it.

- Hey, Vik! - How are you, George?

Welcome to adventure land.

Absolutely, thank you for having me.

You bet.

We've been waiting for U.S. Pipe

for quite a lot to get here, we've been wanting to tell this story.

And you guys have been at it for quite a while.

Long time, lot of innovation over the years.

I hear there's quite a few innovators down there

- working on things. - They are.

You know, it looks very simple,

our pipe carries water from point A to point B.

Where we spend our time innovating is on making sure that that pipe will do that,

no matter what's happening around it.

So, around innovation, right, we're thinking about

population change, population growth, climate change,

and all the stresses that's going to put on water for structure

- and how do we do our part. - Mm-hmm.

So, take deep freezes for example.

Right? Our pipe now

has a solution to make sure the water is not going to freeze.

Wild fires is another example.

I've actually watched our pipe burn in a fire

- for over 20 minutes. - [George] Yes.

And not only does the material stand up to it,

but the water inside the pipe actually insulates the gasket

and our pipe functioned beautifully,

and not all materials can say that.

Very nice.

And then, finally, just thinking about earthquakes

and earth movements, in making sure that our pipe

has the ability to deflect and flex a little bit,

while still maintaining all of that strength.

[George] Well done.

So, what's the next big move?

Where are you heading in this technology world with pipe?

Well, you know, this piece of pipe right here

and the joint that I've brought you is actually our latest HDSS.

- Okay. - And what you see is,

we have a typical gasket structure,

but we also have a weld bead,

and then we've got these locking segments.

And they go in just one slot, you just kind of slide them down,

so they're incredibly easy to install.

And then, ultimately, when pressurized,

creates an enormous amount of resistance.

[George] Interesting.

So, in other words, I'm sliding this pipe in,

you're going to bring two pipes together,

and then you put your rubber gasket

in there and it can still move a little,

but with this mechanism here,

this blue mechanism, which you jam in there.

It basically takes up all the tolerance,

so you have a very resilient and reliable come-together spot.

Incredibly resilient pipe that could sustain

those kinds of earth movements and anything else that came its way.

Because in U.S. Pipe we're not just thinking about how do we create

a product for the next several decades,

we're thinking about centuries.

And we have plenty of pipe that has been on the ground

for over 100 years, and we're thinking about

how do you create pipe that could last 200 years.

- Maybe even longer than that. - [George] Right.

Because the need for water is not going to go away,

and it will always remain essential,

and that's what we innovate for, that's our job.

They've gotten stronger, lighter, more resilient.

You know, this is looking like it might fit around here.

Well, it's kind of heavy, I'm not sure I want to take it back with me.

I would love it if you could find a home for it here.

You know I have a home for it,

I'm putting it right in there where the museum is,

and we get all those kids come in through here.

We'll tell a good story on this one too, Vik.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vik.

Ah...

Oh, yeah.

Got one down.

[narrator] To learn more about the content in today's episode,

visit us online at www.tomorrowsworldtoday.com.

[grunts and chuckles]