CONSTRUCTION AND FABRICATION OF NEW STEAM BOILERS

Our company INTERLOK at Pila is able to realize all works related to the design, construction and fabrication of steam, and steam locomotive boilers according to the technical demands of the customers. The following orders may be placed:

We repair the "worn out" boiler of the customer, according to the original manufactural technology.
The customer's original boiler cannot be repaired. In this case, it serves as a pattern according to which INTERLOK constructs, and fabricates a new one.
We are able to construct, and manufacture a boiler in riveted, and welded, construction. The fire box always is welded.
INTERLOK is able to carry out both calculation/construction and the manufacturing of the factory new steam boiler. But we also accept only to do the calculation and construction/drawing work, in case the customer wishes to let another company do the fabrication.
Our calculations/construction works are consulted with the technical supervision authorities of the country of destiny.
We are constructing and manufacturing factory new steam locomotive boilers according to the new European Union's "Pressure Equipment Directive" (PED). Since May 2002, this directive is the only basis to approve a factory new steam boiler for usage in the EU countries. It provides a new safety definition to the calculations, and the tests of all manufacture technologies, materials welds, stays, fixings of tubes etc. being used for that boiler. At present, we are constructing a new boiler according to PED for an 0-6-0 tank locomotive for a customer in France. The works and correct interpretation of PED rules are approved by Technical Supervision Authorities (TUEV) at Lyon.

In the following, we like to give some examples of our technical solutions.

FOUNDATION RING

If possible and accepted by our customers, we regenerate the original foundation ring of a used boiler. In this case, we mainly regenerate the rivet holes so that we may fix it again to the outer box by rivets. Example: Boiler for Blumstadt.

If a new foundation ring has to be fabricated and fixed by rivets, INTERLOK manufactures them out of several solid forged elements, welded between themselves. The same way, we manufacture new fire hole rings. Example: Fire hole ring of boiler No 414 for France.

On demand, INTERLOK also manufactures the foundation ring according to the current commonly used technical standard, out of several half-cut tubes (so-called trough construction). These half tubes, however, have to be forged in order to get the needed stability. The disadvantage of this construction method is:

At least for smaller boilers, it is difficult to fix the ash box to the boiler, because it is impossible to fix it directly to the foundation ring.
Each revision/overhaul of outer box and fire box damages the foundation ring to an extent that it has to be substituted by a new one. This does not happen in case of a foundation ring manufactured as massive construction and fixed by rivets, instead of welds. Therefore, it is cheaper to manufacture a foundation ring out of pipe halfs. But the over all costs extent after several overhauls. As INTERLOK prices rely to the low Polish wages' level, it is better for the customers to order at once a massive foundation ring.

LAPPED FORGED BOILER PARTS

INTERLOK Pila, as well as our German share holder MaLoWa Ltd. Benndorf, are generally offering lapped forged boiler parts. We do not practice the fabrication of rounded boiler sections out of several quarters or halfs of cut tubes, because we use the traditional technologies as working standard. For many boiler parts, there are still lap forge models available. If we cannot use existing forge moulds, we prepare them on our own. Example: Fire box side wall of outer box for boiler No 414 for France.

FIREBOX

The technical abilities of INTERLOK Pila and our partner MaLoWa Ltd. allow us to manufacture even complicated parts of boiler walls, as they occur in historical constructions. Example: Fire box for boiler No 414 for France.

This boiler is a completely new construction according to the ancient boiler design, but taking into account the current technical demands of boiler supervision authorities.

OUTER BOX AND DRUM

In case of a partial reconstruction of a used boiler, the parts to be exchanged and repaired are being agreed upon by technical supervision authorities and customers during a visual inspection. The sections to be replaced are marked by chalk. Example: Boiler for Association Blumstadt.

We use invasive and non-invasive (non-destructive) methods to examine thickness and resistance of boiler plates, welds, stays, rivets etc. The material tests are carried out by authorized institutions and certified laboratories. The supervision of the works is done by a certified Polish boiler inspector, who may also fulfil duties for the supervision authorities of the customers' destination countries. All documents, descriptions of the construction etc. are provided by INTERLOK in Polish, and the language of the customers. For boiler No 414, we provided all documents, and the correspondency, in French. Example: "boiler passport" for boiler No 414.

With exception of the fire box, all parts of that boiler were riveted as the customer (VIVARAIS Railway) wished to receive a boiler manufactured according to original French design, and technologies. Therefore, the STAYS ARE NOT WELDED, BUT THREADED. To ensure their proper fixation to the boiler, the stays were widened after their installation, and curled afterwards.

The resistance of all stays was mathematically calculated by INTERLOK to ensure a proper and safe usage of the boiler. The original boiler had been supplied with a copper fire box, the new one is equipped with a steel fire box. The French supervision authorities wished to use copper stays for the lowest two stay rows of the outer box. The calculation of these rows proved that copper stays have to be longer than the elsewhere used steel stays. Therefore, INTERLOK enlarged the thickness of the fire box plate around the stay holes by internal application of especially manufactured rings (fixed by welding).

According to the customer's wishes, a threaded blowdown connection was installed, made of special stainless steel.

The working methods used for this boiler are similar to the work with classical copper fire boxes. Therefore, it is possible that INTERLOK reconstructs an old steam boiler with a copper fire box without the need to substitute it by a new steel fire box. This again, minimalizes the over-all costs of such a repair. Our photographies give more examples of boiler Nr 414 for VIVARAIS:

OTHER BOILER WORKS

On demand, INTERLOK also sends a workers' brigade to the customers' place. Also repair works on tank cars are possible, as well as manufacturing of components and whole boilers not being used for steam locomotives. Example: a factory-new heat exchanger for the hospital at Pila. This photography of January,2002, by Ryszard Smulkowski, all other photographies by Hermann Schmidtendorf, taken between February and April, 2002.

FABRICATION OF NEW, AND REPAIR OF USED STEAM CYLINDERS

MANUFACTURING OF AN ALMOST ENTIRELY NEW O+K NARROW GAUGE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE

ARGENTINIAN ENGINEER L.D.PORTAs WORK ON MODERNISATION OF DRAUGHTMODEL LEMPOR ON STEAM LOCOMOTIVES

GO TO INTERLOK PILA

BACK TO START