SIC 3443 Fabricated Plate Work—Boiler Shops

SIC 3443

This classification includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing power and marine boilers, pressure and nonpressure tanks, processing and storage vessels, heat exchangers, and weldments and similar products; these are made by cutting, forming, and joining metal plates, shapes, bars, sheets, pipe mill products, and tubing to custom or standard design for factory or field assembly. Excluded from this category are establishments primarily involved in manufacturing warm air heating furnaces, which are classified in SIC 3585: Air-Conditioning and Warm Air Heating Equipment and Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration Equipment. Those establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing nonelectric heating apparatus other than power boilers are classified in SIC 3433: Heating Equipment, Except Electric and Warm Air Furnaces. Also excluded from the fabricated plate work classification are manufacturers of household cooking apparatus and those manufacturing industrial process furnaces and ovens. The former are covered in SIC 3631: Household Cooking Equipment, and the latter are listed under SIC 3567: Industrial Process Furnaces and Ovens.

NAICS CODE(S)

332313

Plate Work Manufacturing

332410

Power Boiler and Heat Exchanger Manufacturing

332420

Metal Tank (Heavy and Gauge) Manufacturing

333415

Air-Conditioning and Warm Air Heating Equipment and Commercial and Industrial Refrigeration Equipment Manufacturing

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

Plating—the application of a thin metal layer on a surface to enhance wearing quality, prevent leakage, and protect against corrosion—is used in the fabrication of many products. The manufacturing process generally is consigned to manufacturers involved in the fabricated plate work industry. The bulk of manufacturing activity is in Texas, Pennsylvania, California, Ohio, and Oklahoma. Although the bulk of the industry's shipments comprises a multitude of products manufactured through plating processes, the core of the fabricated plate work industry essentially includes the manufacturing of power and marine boilers and various types of plate tanks and storage vessels. Power boiler and heat exchanger manufacturers shipped $3.6 billion in products in the mid-2000s, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Power boilers, as classified by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, operate at greater than 15-psig steam pressure and are intended for stationary service, which excludes locomotive boilers from the scope of the fabricated plate work industry. Boilers operating at 15-psig steam pressure or lower, known as low-pressure heating boilers, are classified in SIC 3433: Heating Equipment, Except Electric and Warm Air. Power boilers, designed to operate at high pressures and temperatures, generate steam to provide power for utility companies and for various industrial processes. The boiler itself consists of two principal parts: the furnace, which provides heat, usually by burning fuel, and the boiler proper, in which water is converted to steam by the heat piped in from the furnace. A steam engine derives its power from steam generated under pressure in a boiler. Marine boilers are designed and fabricated for use aboard a wide range of vessels, including tugboats, ocean liners, oil drilling barges, freighters, and aircraft carriers.

BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT

The origins of the fabricated plate work industry may be traced to the early development of boilers, which began in the Middle Ages when inventors experimented with the idea of harnessing the power of steam. For centuries, improvements were made in both the theory of deriving power from steam and in steam generators themselves. Seventeenth century inventor Giovanni Battista della Porta was the first to discover that when steam condensed in a closed vessel, it created a vacuum that could draw up water. Thomas Savery, an English engineer working in the late seventeenth century, created the first machine to provide mechanical power by utilizing steam. By 1800 vast improvements had been made in designing steam engines and boilers, but the expense involved in developing prototypes was prohibitive.

In 1800 a landmark development in the history of boiler development occurred when Richard Trevithick put together a steam engine and boiler, which eventually, through the addition of tubes carrying gases from a fire, increased the heating surface and efficiency of the boiler. Several decades after Trevithick's achievements, John Stevens, an American engineer, developed one of the first boilers in which tubes carried water to be converted to steam, instead of gases from a fire. This "water-tube" boiler represented the culmination of roughly fifty years of work by Stevens in his efforts toward constructing an efficient steam system to power ships along the Hudson River. By the mid-nineteenth century, further improvements had been made in the water-tube design, which allowed the water to circulate more easily, provided more heating surface, and lowered the risk of boiler explosions.

During this time, boiler design was fostered by the industrialization of Great Britain. The shift from an agrarian and commercial society to an industrial society was prompting a similar transition in the United States, shaping that country into a modern manufacturing nation. Steam powered both of these industrialization movements; the power it provided proved intrinsic to the movement toward large and distinct manufacturing industries. In the United States, residences and local industries were the primary users of these steam generators until the latter half of the nineteenth century. At that time, the applications for steam power broadened and spurred the emergence of a market segment for the fabricated plate work industry that would fuel its growth throughout the twentieth century.

The unveiling of this new use for steam took place at the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, during which the practicality of generating electricity by steam power was demonstrated to the attending public. Five years later, four boilers were powering the Brush Electric Light and Power Co. in Philadelphia, the nation's first commercial electric generating station, marking the beginning of a new era for both...

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