PITTSBURGH, Pa. — While pioneering methods of fabricating major steel components for high-speed trains, Maglev Inc. has been quietly working with the U.S. Department of Defense to use its product in stealth warships, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
The Office of Naval Research, which earlier granted $3.8 million to Maglev Inc., is finalizing documents to award another $2.2 million to the Monroeville-based firm to establish a prototype facility in the Mon Valley, tentatively to begin next year.
And even if some other region wins the competition to build magnetically levitated trains that travel 240 mph, U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Swissvale, said the guideway could be fabricated and supplied here because Maglev Inc. appears to be far ahead in the technology race. The steel also could be used by the Navy.
“The Navy is excited about what they’re doing” to lower the cost and time involved with building new warships, he said. “It’s not a done deal yet, but a lot is taking place behind the scenes.”
Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey and Doyle said the steel research and production facility which uses lasers, computers and yet-to-be-patented equipment might provide economic opportunities for struggling communities south of Pittsburgh.
“High-speed maglev has the pizzazz but the manufacturing process appears to be more practical and holds more promise,” Roddey said.
Maglev Inc. is perfecting the high-tech methods to fabricate and weld 200-foot-long pieces of steel into 100-ton hollow or “box” beams that would make up the superstructure of stealth ships for the Navy. The national defense project could also put the region at the cusp of supplying and fabricating steel components again for bridges and other big-ticket items.
If successful, Maglev Inc.’s endeavor could lead to potentially billions of dollars worth of future economic activity.
“While people love the idea of building a maglev train, smart business people have told us that when all is said and done, precision fabrication of steel may be the biggest thing to happen in the region in some time,” said Jay Weinberg, a Maglev Inc. vice president. “It could mean more technology, investment and jobs than maglev trains.”
Weinberg and Fred Gurney, Maglev Inc. president, said pursuing other uses for maglev technology poses a “win-win situation” for Western Pennsylvania and his company.
The Navy’s interest centers on Maglev Inc.’s proposed methods of using giant computer-controlled fitting tables, lasers and robotics to cut, bend, form and weld special steel box beams that have complex curvatures but almost no distortion.
The tolerances of the steel box beams are to be so precise that, once lined up like ribs to form the hull of stealth ships, it won’t be possible to slip a nickel between the hulks of metal before they’re welded together.
Under existing shipbuilding methods, Gurney said about 40 percent of the steel components must be reworked to match up the pieces exactly, delaying completion and affecting the quality of work.
“The box beams used in ships are of different widths, depths, lengths that have to fit together like pieces in a puzzle,” Weinberg said. “That’s where the value of precision fabrication like we propose comes in. The facility in the Mon Valley would be where we will build and test the beams … to prove the process will work.”
If such cutting-edge manufacturing is successful, the Navy could halve the cost of building billion-dollar ships such as the low-silhouette, high-tech destroyers now in the planning. The new DD-21s are to use crews one-third the size of today’s warships and be capable of firing 250-pound shells with the accuracy to hit a tennis court 60 miles away.
Gurney, 62, of Murrysville, is no stranger to high-tech challenges and government-supported research and development. He has degrees in mechanical, materials and metallurgical engineering, including a doctorate. Before joining Maglev Inc., he was the program director of superconducting magnet development for a since-abandoned atom-smashing “super collider” project in Texas.
“Our shipbuilding project is for the Department of Defense and our high-speed maglev project is for the Department of Transportation,” Gurney said. “While we separate the work, precision fabrication of steel is the common thread in both of them.”
He said former industrial “brownfield” sites in the Mon Valley would be ideal for the state-of-art steel beam production facility because river and rail access exist to transport the components to coastal shipbuilding yards where the vessels would be assembled and outfitted.
McKeesport Community Development Director Bethany Budd-Bauer said officials from her city and Duquesne have been meeting with Maglev Inc. to build a facility in one or both of their industrial parks.
“It looks like the U.S. Navy project is the bigger thing on the horizon right now,” she said. “We think it holds unlimited potential and an unlimited spectrum of jobs. If it gets off the ground, we’ll set off fireworks.”
Doyle said no one wanted to give everybody a false sense of hope, “so we haven’t seen a lot of hullabaloo. We need to build a coalition to get the [$2.2 million in Office of Naval Research grant] appropriated and keep it going.”