Buildings
Freedom Tower Gets Start in a Luxembourg Plant
(archrecord.construction.com - 09/11/2006)
By David
Sokol
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| Photos © Studio
Frank Weber |
This month, a ship from Antwerp will
set off to the U.S. containing the first pieces of New York’s
Freedom Tower. Twenty-seven “Jumbo Sections,” or
super-heavy steel I-beams, were fabricated at an Arcelor plant
in Differdange, Luxembourg, in August to become part of the
below-grade structure of the Freedom Tower; together the pieces
weigh 805 tons.
The steel will cover the framing above
the PATH, as well as column sections for the Freedom Tower.
Producing these giants, shown in these photographs, involves
melting and casting scrap metal, and then reheating and rolling
the raw steel in order to shape it into I-beam form. Once
the components arrive at the port of Camden, New Jersey, fabricator
Banker Steel Company will weld plates to their sides, forming
columns that are up to 42 by 30 inches in cross-section, a
size too big to have been achieved in a mill. (They will arrive
at the Lynchburg, Virginia, facility measuring a mere 22.5x18
inches in cross-section.)
When erected at the World Trade Center
later this year, the substructure columns will rise about
15 feet above sidewalk level. And although they will provide
evidence that there’s more to the Freedom Tower than
a giant pit, this first step really is just a first, if symbolic,
baby step: the building will ultimately comprise 50,000 tons
of steel.
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