Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Yunan Guo programs instructions into a robotic welding machine at Maglev Inc. in McKeesport. Click photo for larger image.

The banks of the Youghiogheny River in McKeesport are ringing with the clang of steel hitting steel again as craftsmen work the metal at Maglev Inc.'s new facility in RIDC Park.

Local and national officials are optimistic that the research facility, housed in a building in the old National Tube steel mill complex, some day could be Grand Central Station for the production of large steel superstructures on which Maglev trains will ride. The McKeesport site is a U.S. Navy-sponsored research facility where engineers and tradesmen are working to develop a process where the 22-foot long steel beams on which high-speed Maglev trains ride can be mass produced by large robotic arms.

Employees now have the facility's first computer-controlled robotic arm operational. This "arm" is the first in what researchers hope one day will be line of 42 robotic arms.

Researchers are using laser-radar measuring to help in the fabrication of the steel beams. The computer database in which these measurements are stored eventually will control the facility.

The plan for the facility is to perfect the fabrication of the beams so they can be produced rapidly on a line of 42 robotic arms. A small miscalculation in weld distortion will ruin the plan, Ken Flessas, director of technology said. "You can't afford to re-fit beams," he said.

Once proven, the technology could be used in the construction industry as well as the naval industry and lots of others , said Brad Shaw, senior welding engineer for the Maglev facility.

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Ken Flessas, director of fabrication technology at Maglev, Inc., passes a beam on the manufacturing floor. Click photo for larger image.

"The Navy's goal is to put the technology to use," he said. "The idea is to make the fabrication of steel structures more competitive."

The long-term success of the 22,000-square-foot facility, which its engineers hope will be the prototype for a later million square-foot facility, is partly contingent upon implementation of the federally sponsored magnetic levitation demonstration project. The project could be awarded to Pittsburgh, but its funding became stalled after 911.

But legislation is being re-drafted to include the demonstration project in a new federal transportation bill, said Dan Disk, director of engineering for Maglev Inc. The Navy has funded the Pittsburgh project since 1999, providing a total of $12 million. The Navy is interested in the project because the research could be useful in creating better ships.

Flessas said those at the facility aim to create a new technology that will automate the fabrication of large and small steel structures. "In the steel fabrication industry you now have job shops, where they produce things one or two at a time. And in the automobile industry you have mass production," he explained. "We need to bring those two together."

Caterpillar and John Deere are working on similar technology but on a much smaller scale, Shaw said. But even if the federal government doesn't fund Maglev, and regardless of whether the Navy decides to use it, the process could be a prototype used in a number of industries.

McKeesport administrator Dennis Pittman said the company's development is a win for the city. "Maglev does two things for us," he said. "It brings state-of-the-art technology back to the Mon Valley, allowing us to transition from basic steel to specialty steel. It will also bring more jobs, and a way to retain young people -- two critical things that we need for survival."