I then started thinking about other metal-manufacturing feats, so, to continue the game:
What is the largest single manufactured “thing” made out of metal? “Large” can go different ways: I would accept a stage in aluminum-foil or fencing manufacture or wire-pulling, under the assumption that the process is not infinitely continuous: i.e. at some point an individual mass of feed-stock is consumed.
Finally, kind of a corollary to the initial query, but without the requirement of forging, or indeed of manufacture: what is the largest* constructed* thing in the world which is all-metal, barring glue and wood shimmies and what not (Eiffel Tower, e.g.)?
It also occurs to me that perhaps “largest constructed things with metal” could be interpreted as in “largest organism,” which wouldn’t be sperm whale or Seqouia tree but kelp and mushroom colony. Thus constructions like telephone switching stations and the total mass of metal wire might count.
Hell, how much does the Internet weigh? (Not counting the data, the weight of which was analyzed in another GQ thread.)
A generator has two main parts, the rotor (the part that rotates) and the stator (the part that doesn’t). The rotor’s electrical windings (coils), cooling fins, and other bits will all be attached to that shaft.
Bridges towers and buildings are rivetted or bolted together. rivets are shades of grey as to whether you consider it fusion like welding or seperate pieces still , as in nut and bolt.
But ships are welded together. So perhaps ships count as one item from bow to stern ??
Seawise Giant was 450 metres long, and about 6 other ships have been longer than Barzan, but broken up now.
Barzan is the current longest ship , 400 metres long.
But then… railway lines are welded together too… But there are points that break them up. Its hard to know where the longest rail sections are… not much reason for any points across the Nullaboor , Australia.
For a long time, the largest cast object was the iron pillar of Delhi, constructed about 402 CE with a mass of over 6000 kg. No doubt that’s been exceeded, but probably wasn’t for over 1000 years after it was made.
The Tsar Bell weighs over 200 tonnes. It is in two pieces since it broke during casting, but even if you count them separately, the larger piece weighs 190 tonnes. It’s definitely the largest bell in the world, but I don’t know for sure if it’s the largest cast object of any type.
Jumbo weighed in at 214 tons. At the time it was made for the Manhattan Project, (1945) it was the heaviest object ever shipped by rail in the United States. It survived close proximity to the Trinity test, and other attempts to destroy it later on. I imagine it’s no longer a record-holder, but it remains impressive and what is left of it is displayed at Trinity.
Dunno where that forge s, but according to my stock market analyst, the largest forge in the USA is in the USA because they have defence contracts to make ships propellers. Propellers are very high tech, and apparently they (still) aren’t willing to ship that information offshore.
The largest forging I have seen (and I have seen a lot) are probably for nuclear reactors. Mostly calandrias and stuff like that. You probably won’t find much publicly available data though.
For the Paris Exhibition of 1855, Alfred Krupp exhibited a single cast steel ingot weighing 100,000-pounds (45,000 kg), which was by far the largest ever seen. The ability to produce such large ingots was a major coup for his Krupp factory. (Think how big a cannon barrel they could cast.)
That may be the biggest ever done. since there isn’t really that much use for an ingot that big – most items are cast into their final shape, rather than being machined from an ingot.
The substitution of forged steel iron in gun construction has resulted in the universal adoption of the built-up gun. About the year 1855 the Englishman, Blakely, and the American, Treadwell, in- dependently discovered and demonstrated the value of the principle of initial tension as a means of increasing the strength and economizing the material of a gun. What this means can be briefly shown.
Assume a tube of perfectly annealed metal with given tenacity and elasticity…
Side note: Continuously welded rail is generally used for high speed rail which the Indian Pacific is not. I’m pretty sure it is old style jointed rails and also it has period passing sidings which would break it up anyway (it’s single track). There might be some super long length of CWR somewhere on the Chinese high speed rail network they’ve been building. They have a high speed line to Urumqi which is in the far west and runs through a large section of the gobi desert.