The Great Welding And Gases Road Trip

Admire your country, appreciate your industry.

All across this country, from the Redwood Forest to the New York Island, there are sights to be seen. From the natural beauty of our national parks to the man-made wonders that define our great cities, there is no shortage of breathtaking beauty to behold. What’s more, at many of these destinations, it’s the welding and gases industry working in the background. In this article, we’re taking a look at four of the country’s most desirable destinations and pulling back the curtain on how our industry is the substance behind the spectacle.

On the west side of the Grand Canyon, on the Hualapai Indian Reservation, there is a man-made attraction that is inferior by comparison, yet still incredibly impressive—the Grand Canyon Skywalk. Since its opening in 2007, millions of visitors have experienced the massive, horseshoe-shaped steel and glass structure. The skywalk protrudes 70 feet past the canyon’s edge and a dizzying 4,000 feet above the Colorado River bed. Its 60-inch glass walls and 3-inch-thick floor, which is composed of layers of heat-strengthened industrial glass, provide an almost unobstructed view of the canyon.

Safely securing the structure and its visitors above the Grand Canyon is a frame consisting of welded carbon steel box girders that measure 2 inches thick, 6 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. During construction, they arrived in 40-foot sections that were sub-arc welded on site. Key to the stability of the structure is minimizing the impact of vibrations from foot traffic and wind gusts. This is accomplished with three oscillating dampers made of 3,000-pound steel plates inside hollow bridge beams. The Skywalk is engineered to support weights exceeding 70 million pounds and tolerate winds of up to 100 miles per hour. It can also withstand earthquakes as high as 8.0 in magnitude and within 50 miles of the canyon.

Yankee Stadium
We travel now from one of the country’s oldest and most majestic natural landmarks in one of its most serene settings to one of its newest man-made attractions in its busiest city. The one-year-old Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, New York, is a 53,000 seat cathedral with a $1.3 billion price tag.

Building the new Yankee Stadium was an incredible undertaking and it relied heavily on the gases and welding industry. One of the stadium’s more distinct traits is its steel frieze. The frieze, which adorns the stadium’s upper deck, is made up of 39 sections of steel. Each piece consists of tubular steel and plate steel welded together. The zinc-coated steel apparatus is both beautiful and practical as it serves as cantilever support for stadium lights and the upper decking. This eliminates the need for view-obstructing steel beam supports. The frieze is just one example of where welding was used in the construction of Yankee Stadium. Overall, there were 14,000 tons of steel used to build the stadium and 18,000 pounds of welding rod hold it all together. Seven full-time pros handled the difficult welding, and an army of second-tier welders handled minor projects like the seats and decking. Maspeth, New York-based GAWDA member AWISCO was the gases and torch provider for the operation.

America’s Roller Coast
Nestled in the northeast corner of Ohio, in the town of Sandusky, is Cedar Point, an amusement park that is appropriately nicknamed “America’s Roller Coast.” The park features 17 of the world’s finest steel roller coasters and, as you might expect, that means a lot of welding has to happen. “Man, we do a lot of welding around here,” says Eric Lapp, ride maintenance supervisor at Cedar Point. “Every coaster is either made of steel or has a steel track, which means they require constant welding maintenance.” To keep up with the demand, the park employs two full-time welders who are responsible for managing any breaks or cracks on a ride’s track. Cedar Point also has an on-site technician who inspects the structural integrity of the steel rides on a regular basis, looking for any cracked joints or broken seams.

For those of you who want to see a large scale example of what our industry is capable of, look no further than the park’s 420-foot-tall Top Thrill Dragster (TTD). The TTD is an accelerator coaster that generates its power from a hydraulic launch system. The TTD starts its journey with a burst of speed, generated by compressed nitrogen, which is strong enough to carry the train up a 400-foot vertical incline at speeds approaching 120 miles per hour. The coaster is powered by four nitrogen-backed accumulators, each of which holds up to 70 gallons of oil. The nitrogen pressurizes the oil to 320 bar. Upon takeoff, the pressure is discharged simultaneously from all four accumulators, resulting in a force of 10,000 horsepower. It’s an incredible spectacle and a testament to the power of compressed nitrogen. And as it should happen, the TTD’s local nitrogen supplier is GAWDA member O.E. Meyer Company of Sandusky, Ohio.

No matter where you go across this great nation, there are numerous sights to behold and it takes the combined efforts of American Industry to make many of them possible. While it might not be the foundation that these destinations were built on, the gases and welding industry is certainly what holds many of them together.

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