The Elk Mountain pilot., 1924-03-20

Factory is 1,1OO Acres-One Elec-
tric Furnace Has Capacity of Fifty
TOns-All Waste Eliminated.
Language affords only superlatives
with which to describe the River
Rouge plant of the Ford Motor COM
pany, which today rears its lofty
smokestacks and towering tanks,
mammoth storage bins, huge covered
conveyors and broad roofs covering a
plant area of LOO acres along the
banks of the stream for which it is
named, where half dozen years ago
there was only windswept prairie and
swamp land.
The Rouge plant stands alone, com
parable to no other monument to hui
man ingenuity and perseverance
that the world has thus far seen. 1t
can only be said that this thing is
the largest in the world, and that
one the greatest, for there is nothing
like this plant anywhere, and today,
it is but half completed.
Largest Electric Furnace is
Latest Achievement
The worlds largest electric steel
furnace having a capacity Of fifty
tons, is the latest achievement at the
Rouge. 1t stands beside the founda-
tion for second one which is to be
built shortly, and close by two ten
ton electric steel furnaces. These,
l
combined with the two giant 600 ton
blast furnaces, each cap able of deliv-
ering 600 tons of foundry iron per
day, form foundry unit such as has
never been seen before in. combina-
tion in single plant. -...a
With such equipment, the metal
lurgists have made their dream of
fifty years come true. Here molten
iron is run directly from the fur
naces into molds, eliminating the
slow and costly step of casting first
into pigs and remelting. This new
process, successfully evolved at the
Rouge plant after more, than half a
century of experimentation, has given
to Ford products tough, high-silicon,
light web castings at a considerably
lowered production cost.
The Rouge power plant, even now
a marvel, will, when completed, have
total electrical capacity of 100000
kilowatts generated at 13,2OO volts by
eight turbo-generators. These units
have been designed by Ford engin-
GERS and the first is now 85 per cent
complete, having been built from the
start by Ford workmen in Ford ships.
Three hurbo blowers, already in
stalled in the power house, supply
100000 cubic feet of air per minute
The new generators, when completed,
will be powered by battery of the
eight largest steam boilers ever built
which are now furnishing steam to
smaller temporary turbines. These
boilers are adapted to burning pull
verified coal, blast furnace gas and
tar. Incidentally, they are the first
boilers to burn pulverized coal suc-
cessfully.
One Building Above
Is Model Factory
In building "B" Fordson tractors
and Ford bodies are assembled. In
this single building 500 tractors, 1000
Ford sedan bodies, 1000 touring bod
les and 1900 runabout bodies can be
turned out in single day.
There is locomotive repair shop,
where engines of the Ford railroad,
the d. T. & l., are serviced, and which
is equipped to build new locomotives.
This plant is now being enlarged to
include a car building shop.
Probably no feature of the Rouge
plant is more interesting than the
amazing economies that are effected
there. Starting with a sintering
plant which reclaims blast furnace
dust, reclamation features follow
every operation. r
The sintering plant, recently put
in operation, is at work on the task
of converting mountain of $4,000
tons of blast furnace dust into iron.
The dust, half checked iron ore and
half pulverized coke, is the collection
of three years, having been blown off
from the blast furnaces at the rate
of from twenty to twenty-five tons
day.
Soft coal, brought in on the Ford
railroad from Ford mines in West
Virginia and Kentucky, is pulverized
and sent to the battery of 12o coke
ovens, the produc tion of which, under
eighteen hours coking time, is 1000
tons of coke per day.
Vapors from the coke ovens are led
thru an elaborate system of towers,
centrifugal stills, scrubbers and con-