Looking into an electric arc furnace with the power on

How the heck? Why are they that close?

And if the camera is shaking like that, is it being held by hand?

Oh...my...lord...

Back up, dude.

Admittedly, though, seeing the molten iron bubble and spit and boil like that is stunning to see, and I am thrilled that some nutcase - make that sentinel76 - stood close enough to let me see that.

Here's what I would assume the process would look like from much further away. Skip to about 1:38 to see the electrode fire up and the above process begin.

Charging the furnace

I was lucky enough to get to tour the Nucor steel plant in Tuscaloosa, AL a couple of years back for one of our summer ASM Teachers Camps. At that plant they use an electric arc furnace to melt their scrap iron which they then mix to the desired composition of steel. I remember seeing them charge the furnace with recycled scrap iron and thinking it was just about the scariest, brightest, most awesome thing I had ever seen.

I don't know where Christopher Birkbeck - the poster of the above video - was touring when he filmed this video, but I imagine it's a pretty similar set-up to what I saw in Tuscaloosa.

My understanding of what's happening is that the scrap iron has some organic compounds on it - oil, paint, um...paint and oil - which immediately vaporizes and burns off on contact with the already molten iron still in the furnace. This is further fed by the release of oxygen from any rust that is on the scrap iron.

The flare really is outstanding to watch.

Honestly, the best tours we take in the summer are almost always the dirtiest tours.

Thankfully, the two charges we got to see on our tour didn't look anything like this one...



Ours looked a lot more like this...



Really, I could watch these videos all day long...

How It's Made Aluminum

And so goes the glory of Napoleon's really fancy knives and forks...

This video, from the How It's Made series, shows the process necessary to purify bauxite ore into useful, 'finished' aluminum.

Sadly, though, it is bereft of the corny joke that usually comes at the beginning of the How It's Made videos. I kind of miss the joke. Does that mean I've got Stockholm syndrome at this point?

Nova: Secrets of the Samurai Sword

From tip to tail, this one's worth showing in full. I know I can't quite make it in one of our periods (48 minutes last year, no guess how long this year), but it would be well worth two days. Brilliant stuff combining art, science, history, so much. Wow.

New video posted as of 7/30/14 - All times should be modified by subtracting about 20 seconds. For example, 11:30 listed below is more like 11:10 in this video.

My highlights...

• 11:30 - switching from BCC to FCC iron, paralleling the iron wire demo and showing how steel forms from the iron
• 12:45 - Thoe Gray's tour of the periodic table (love his book, app, poster, all of it)
• 15:00 - Charpy hardness testing explanation - toughness vs hardness
• 22:00 - The breaking up of the furnace is just gorgeous to watch...brilliant and blinding and beautiful. Wow...
• 23:00-25:30 - Could be skipped if need be, compares Japanese samurai films to American westerns
• 31:10 - cold working, work hardening of copper and how that relates to crystal defects in the sword
• 33:30-36:00 - Also could be skipped as it doesn't cover any science, just showing us how impressive the swords and swordsmen are.
• 36:40 - Differences in types of steel - high- and low-carbon steel - and how they are combined to make a better sword
• 40:50 - Heat treating, quenching and what it does to high- and low-carbon steels
• 44:00 - Differential thermal expansion, like a bimetallic strip
• 45:30-47:00 - Skippable...how to use the sword properly in fighting

Man, great stuff.

Copper In Our Electrical World

I'm thinking that there is a better way to take those electronic devices (2:30) apart than just bashing at them with various hammers. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

I'd never really thought about the process through which copper deposits are made, and this video covers the chemistry from 3:30-5:00. From there we get to follow the copper from deposit to purified copper - through hydrometalurgical processing (purifying the copper via aqueous solutions - 5:15-8:30) and pyrometalurgical processing (heat, smelting - 8:40-11:30). The level of detail in each process is marvelous as are the animations used to show what happens in each step along the way. We even get a discussion of hydrophobic and hydrophilic effects at 9:30.

I had no idea of the numerous steps along the way from ore to pure metal.

The video moves onward to (11:40- ) to an exploration of why copper is used - relatively low cost, good conductivity, durability - so commonly throughout our industrial world. These properties are explored through the crystal structure (grains, boundaries, etc) of the copper crystals.

From 13:40 onward the uses of copper - wires, electromagnets, antennas and wireless, integrated circuits - are covered.

The video is a little long, but there is a degree's worth of science covered in the eighteen minutes here.

How It's Made: the 2 Euro Coin

These two-euro coins are far more interesting than are the coins that we use in the United States. Yes, our coins are partially sandwiched, but we lack the two-part, ringed coins that are used in many countries in Europe. The rings just make the coins way cooler.

They also, of course, make the coins far trickier to manufacture, a process shown in depth in this video.

Steelmaking: Blast Furnace

Smelting of ores into native metals is an old technology. In a blast furnace an oxygen-poor material (carbon, typically) is introduced into an ore under white hot conditions where the carbon grabs the oxygen leaving purer native metals leaving slag behind.

In this video we get an initial animation of the blast furnace itself. Then we get footage of the native metal and a discussion of the next steps for the carbon-rich iron that is produced.

How Ductile Iron Pipes Made

I promise that the title is as I've typed it above. The lack of a helping verb or a contraction bothers me, but that's how the video is titled.

Here we follow the production of ductile iron pipes from the sourcing (primarily recycled iron/steel), smelting, mixing, casting, and finishing the pipe. The spinning mold is particularly fascinating.

How I Built a Toaster

Thomas Thwaites apparently is a tinkerer. In this video he goes through the highlights of his attempts to recreate - from scratch - the simplest electric appliance he could come up with: a cheap, plastic-covered toaster. He went to the mines to collect the ore, smelted it down to form the plugs and wires. He attempted to mine plastic - then went with forming a bioplastic instead. Finally, he plugged the toaster in and successfully toasted bread for about five seconds.

In his words he "considered it a partial success."

If you're interested in learning a little more, check out his book about the project.

I'm a little stumped on all the possible labels that could apply to this one. Feel free to suggest more.