Division Brochure

People and Technology
Positioned for quality, service and competitiveness

A wholly owned subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, PST can claim more than a century of innovation in rail manufacturing, as well as many "firsts" in the industry, some of which are:

• first U.S. producer of rail steel
• first to produce fully heat-treated rail
• pioneered the development of control cooling and end-hardening
• first to make rail steel in an electric furnace
• first in the U.S. to make rails from continuous cast blooms

There is a great deal more to producing quality rails than investing capital. It takes a knowledgeable and committed work force to implement capital programs successfully. PST is fortunate to have such a dedicated team that extends from technical personnel in the modern research laboratory in Bethlehem, Pa., to an experienced work force on the shop floor in Steelton. Through the combined energies of our people, PST has the ability to deliver on its commitment to provide quality, longer-lasting rails and responsive service at competitive costs.

State-of-the-Art Steelmaking Produces World-Class Rails
1. DC Electric Arc Furnace
Direct current technology provides us with the best available means of making steel. Advantages include lower power consumption, lower electrode consumption, longer refractory life, lower noise levels, lower maintenance, enhanced stirring effect and reduced flicker generation. This results in significant cost savings and better steel quality. Also, the eccentric bottom tapping promotes more efficient tapping and cleaner steel.

2. Ladle Arc Reheating Furnace
This furnace performs additional steel refining by providing excellent temperature control and metal chemical adjustment capabilities. It provides steel to the Bloom Caster at the correct temperature, chemistry and time. Argon stirring, through a porous plug in the bottom of the ladle, promotes the homogeneous mixing of additives to the ladle, assists in temperature control and promotes the floating out of non-metallic inclusions.

3. Tank Vacuum Degasser
Most importantly, vacuum degassing lowers the hydrogen content of the liquid steel to prevent the formation of hydrogen flakes or shatter cracks. Argon stirring during degassing also assists in removal of hydrogen and further improves steel cleanliness.
Clean steelmaking practices, combined with the benefits of the Ladle Furnace and Vacuum Degasser means that the Jumbo Bloom Caster receives steel with significantly improved internal cleanliness levels, correct chemistry and correct temperature at the correct time. This results in improved rail fatigue life.

4. Continuous Jumbo Bloom Caster
Produces the cleanest rail steel because it eliminates reoxidation by completely shrouding the molten steel from the atmosphere and prevents the reformation of harmful non-metallic inclusions. The rapid solidification affects the inclusion distribution. Inclusions that remain tend to be smaller, globular and more finely dispersed. Also, surface quality is dramatically improved and pipe is virtually eliminated. The resultant blooms are world-class quality, with a sound interior and excellent surface the ideal starting material for rolling mills.
Special casting practices and processes developed by a dedicated team of researchers and caster specialists have further refined steel internal cleanliness by floating out additional remaining inclusions.

5. Soaking Pits
soaking pits enable the hot connection of the continuous cast bloom and the rolling mills to provide significant energy savings. Hot connection eliminates the potential thermal cracking problems associated with cooling blooms to ambient temperature and reheating. Also, the Soaking Pit Control System has been updated completely with the latest computer control technology.

6. 44" Blooming Mill, 35" Rougher, 28" Rail Mill
Three separate mills are used to roll the continuous cast blooms into finished rail. Due to their jumbo size, each bloom requires many passes to reduce it to the final rail section. The resulting 25-to-1 reduction ratio is much greater than any other continuous caster for rail production.
While rolling rails, statistical process control methods are incorporated into the procedures used to control section dimensions through the use of an "Expert System."
High-pressure descaling, roll cooling and rolling lubrication equipment are used in the 28" Rail Mill to maintain good surface quality.

7. In-Line Head Hardening
unit, a 101-meter in-line process at the exit end of the 28" Rail Mill, uses the latent heat from the rolling process. The system is fully computerized and uses water sprays to slack-quench the rail. The resulting product is composed of pearlite with fine inter-lamellar spacings which provides excellent hardness and a rail with improved wear resistance. Residual stresses and straightness are also excellent. The technology for this system comes from CRM (Centre de Recherches Metallurgiques, Leige, Belgium) and MMRA (Metallurgique et Miniere de Rodange-Athus, Luxembourg).
Produced by this technology, rails used in heavy-haul service in the U.S. have performed excellently. Several U.S. railroads prefer this high-strength rail product over others.

8. Controlled Cooling
Rails are cooled in long-length, insulated boxes to insure the removal of any hydrogen gas that may have been re-introduced after the vacuum degassing process. While the reduction of hydrogen levels through vacuum degassing reduces the need for control cooling, we will continue to use control cooling of the rails to further reduce the risk of hydrogen damage.

9. Roller Straightener
All rails are put through a two-plane roller straightening operation. Load levels are continuously monitored to assure the production of straight rails without mechanical damage. An alarm system warns of excessive loads.

10. In-Line Rail Inspection Includes utilization of the following procedures and instruments:

• Visual Inspection Station
• Ultrasonic Twist Gauge measures elapsed time between two sound beams directed on the base of the rail.
• DAPCO 300 Ultrasonic Unit is state-of-the-art, fully computerized with an automatic paint spraying system, and utilizes an array of transducers mounted in neoprene wheels, strategically placed around the rail to monitor internal quality.

• Laser Straightness Gauge performs a three-point measurement of deviations throughout the rail body. Laser beams are directed at the head of the rail and data is monitored continuously by a computer.

• Optical Section Measurement Unit automatically measures key dimensions of the finished rail. Data is continuously collected and analyzed by a computer to aid section control and allow further reduction of section variability.

12. Shipping
Rails are shipped in our own fleet of long-length MTTX cars, specifically designed for shipping 80' rails without banding. This reduces customer unloading time. We can also ship rails in customer-owned cars. For more information call 1-800-344-7245. Pennsylvania Steel Technologies, Inc.