Page 54 - ITAtube Journal 2 2022

Review
Pilger Mill Düsseldorf/Rath
was built in 1899 as the largest and most modern Mannesmannröhren plant; and
it remained the largest and most efficient Mannesmannröhren plant to the end. Modern Hollerith calculating machines had already been used here years before the First World War. In 1923, a pilger rolling mill was built that rolled the largest seamless steel tubes in the world, with up to 711 mm O.D.. The flywheel that supplied the power for the rolling process had a diameter of 13 metres. With the Rather pipes, which from the second half of the 1930s were also produced in another plant in Rath using the faster plug-rolling method, it is even possible to drill “around the corner” if, for example, the protection of nature makes this necessary. They were used to drill the deepest hole in the world in 1987. In 1990, steel pipes were wound onto a drum like
a hose during the laying of a sea pipeline. Mannesmann Stahlbau Hohlprofile (MSH) allows for technically and visually outstand- ing constructions of high-rise buildings.
The extraordinary importance of these plants is demonstrated not least by the visits of prominent politicians. Among others, the Italian Prime Minister and the Spanish Ambassador visited the Reisholz plant; in Mülheim the Federal Chancellors Brandt and Schmidt as well as the King of Jordan and the Chinese Prime Minister;
in Rath Federal Chancellor Schmidt and Federal President Scheel. People who
had rendered outstanding services to the factory were awarded the “pipe knot” at
the carnival session organised by the works council in the Philipshalle. Certainly unusual was the stay of the artist Anatol (Herzfeld) in the Rath factory in 1960. He not only forged a bell for a Düsseldorf school there, but also documented the pilgrim rolling mill and its workforce in large format. It is to be hoped that this painting will be preserved for posterity, as will some of the buildings, plants, products and historic rolling mills, some of which are listed. The historical text and picture documents are already in the Mannesmann archive, which belongs to Salzgitter.
Rath had more than 5,300 employees at the end of the 1960s. Many of them had
ITAtube Journal December 2023
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Pilger Mill Tube Düsseldorf/Rath
programme for decades. A highlight was undoubtedly the production of the reactor pressure vessel for the first German ship to run on atomic energy, the “Otto Hahn”, in 1967. A Reisholz tube was needed to salvage the damaged Russian nuclear sub- marine “Kursk”. Since 1964, the factory had one of the most modern pipe push bench facilities with a 400 kN piercing press.
The list of pioneering achievements of the Mannesmannröhren-Werk in Rath (1997 V&M, 2013 Vallourec) is even longer. It