Next Project: Allis Chalmers ANVG, 9700 HP

[WFarm 0]

In my day job, we re-manufacture very large motors used to drive the coolant pumps at nuclear plants. Allis-Chalmers made many of these motors, along with GE and Westinghouse. They are all vertical induction motors ranging from about 6000 HP to around 11,000 HP, stand 14-16 feet tall and weigh from 35 to 55 tons. We get the motors shipped to our plant (shipping them is a story all its own) where we disassemble them completely, rebuild, rewind, repair, modify and then assemble and test run them. Many of these big ole motors have ran 40 years with minimal maintenance before we get them. The way they were built I think they’d run forever. Allis-Chalmers was a big player in the Manhattan Project during WWII to build the bomb, and actually made nuclear power plants in the day. They were a huge player in large industrial and power generation equipment. Like most of the countries manufacturing however, that is all gone now. This may not be the best place to post this, but I thought it interesting to see a bit of the history of Allis Chalmers. It was an eye-opener to see just how much they did in addition to manufacturing tractors and such!

[720nut 4,225]

Love anything Allis Chalmers thanks for sharingdOddOd

[fishnwiz 3,290]

I would love to see Josh put one of these babies in his garage!

[johnmonkey 4]

Cool! it's younger than me! . Neat story too. jh

[albj93 4]

Holy Cow!! Just the sheer size is always so impressive.. We have some Westinghouse horizontal 5500hp, 3500hp and two 1750hp 4160volt motors that drive 16 stage turbine compressors for the wind tunnel. All of this feeds from Allis Chalmers medium voltage switchgear at one of the primary sub stations. Thank you for the pictures and sharing.

Andy

[WFarm 0]

They were an amazing manufacturer. Check out the Allis Chalmers West Allis plant tour book, circa 1955 or so. Amazing - tractors, huge castings, mammoth transformers.

https://austinfrederick.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/highlights-allis-chalmers-west-allis-works/

[PhanDad 3,616]

Thanks for sharing.

[tadams 988]

Yes thanks for sharing, and to think this is the way everything is headed now. Look how much ahead of time AC was.

Tom

[720nut 4,225]

Thanks for sharing, absolutely amazing company and most think tractors was all they built

[Chris727 2,015]

Thank you for posting this and the historical photos. Most people aren't aware of the major role AC played in building our modern infrastructure. The company actually started out in the flour milling business.

[macallis180 296]

Thanks for posting.

I know I saw AC transformers, and switch gear inside when we went thru the decommissioned Titan missile site last year near Tuscon, AZ.

Made me proud!

Good enough to support to fire a missile if it were ever necessary.

[Alltractoredup 292]

That is some really cool history. Thanks for sharing

[TimJr 206]

Cool. A friend was out west over the winter and toured a Titan? missile silo. He saw a number of AC tags on the high voltage electrical services.

[country 0]

Never thought I'd run across too many people on this site somehow related to nuclear power. I work at Watlow in St. Louis, MO. Watlow is an industrial heater manufacturer of thermal systems (heaters, sensors, controllers, etc.). I'm in our power generation segment, and we have a vast history of manufacturing pressurizer heaters for pressurized water reactor nuclear power plants.

[isetta 50]

Very cool stuff