All machines Energy and Heavy Industry
Energy and Heavy Industry
Rolling mills, forging presses, foundries, turbines and battery plants.
Want the mechanism, not just the footage?
We wrote a full explainer for this category: Hot Strip Rolling Mills. What the machine does, how it works, the numbers that matter and who buys one.
8 films
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49:42 Energy and Heavy IndustryHow a wind turbine is made
A full documentary on building a wind turbine, from blade molds long enough to need their own building to the nacelle assembly and the offshore installation vessel. The largest blades now exceed 100 meters, with one class at 107 meters. Fifty minutes and worth every one of them.
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6:30 Energy and Heavy IndustryInside a hot rolling mill
A glowing slab enters the mill at one end and leaves as a coil of steel strip a few millimetres thick at the other, accelerating through each stand as it gets longer. In modern mills the strip leaves the last finishing stand at up to about 20 meters a second. It is the most violent continuous process in industry.
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3:29 Energy and Heavy IndustryA robotic press brake bending cell
A robot feeds sheet metal into a press brake, flips it between bends and stacks the finished part, running a full bending sequence with no operator. Press brake tending is one of the hardest robot jobs because the part changes shape in the robot's hand. This cell does it cleanly.
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2:32 Energy and Heavy IndustryHow a wind turbine blade is built
Inside a blade plant where glass fiber, balsa and resin are laid into a closed mold and infused under vacuum into a single structure longer than a jumbo jet wing. The mold itself is a multi-million dollar tool. Two and a half minutes that explain why blades cost what they do.
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1:30 Energy and Heavy IndustryAn automatic bending cell working unattended
A compact automatic bending cell built for job shops rather than for a car plant: robot, press brake and tool changer in a footprint that fits a small building. It shows automation scaled down to a size most fabricators could actually justify. Ninety seconds, no music.
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1:24 Energy and Heavy IndustryA hydraulic forging press working a 438 ton ingot
A 438 ton steel ingot being squeezed by a 185 meganewton hydraulic forging press, glowing white and deforming like clay under a load that is hard to write down meaningfully. The manipulator that turns the ingot is itself a very large machine. Eighty-four seconds of pure force.
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1:08 Energy and Heavy IndustryPouring iron on an automated molding line
Molten iron poured into an automated molding line, the ladle tracking the molds as they index past. Foundry pouring is one of the last places where liquid metal and precise machine timing meet. Seventy seconds and the light alone is worth it.
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0:51 Energy and Heavy IndustryHow a battery cell is made
Fifty seconds of battery cell manufacturing filmed by Tesla, showing electrode winding and cell assembly at a speed that reads as a blur. Gigafactory-scale cell production is one of the newest heavy manufacturing processes in the world. Short, dense and beautifully shot.