Urals Heavy Machine-Building Plant

(full name, S. Ordzhonikidze Urals Heavy Machine-building Plant), the largest enterprise in the USSR for heavy machine building. The plant is located in Sverdlovsk and was built in the period 1928–33. In 1971 it became the primary enterprise of the production association Uralmash, which also includes the Design and Engineering Scientific Research Institute for Heavy Machine Building, the Sverdlovsk Drilling and Metallurgical Equipment Plant, and the Sverdlovsk Mine Rescue Equipment Plant.

The plant manufactures rolling mills; machines for the continuous casting of stock; sintering, blast-furnace, and crushing equipment; quarry shovels and walking excavators; drilling rigs; heavy vertical and horizontal hydraulic presses; and other equipment for metallurgy, mining, and the petroleum and gas industry. The plant specializes in manufacturing custom-made machines; however, its series-production equipment output also includes quarry shovels with a scoop of 4.6 cu m, walking excavators with a scoop of 15 cu m and a boom 90 m long, and drilling rigs with a lifting capacity of 125 tons. The Design and Engineering Scientific Research Institute for Heavy Machine Building is responsible for designing equipment to customers’ specifications.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, the plant produced weapons for the front. After the war the plant resumed the manufacture of custom-made equipment. Among the equipment produced by the plant were four- and five-stand rolling mills for continuous cold rolling; loading equipment for large blast furnaces with capacities of 2,700, 3,000, 3,200, and 5,000 cu m; mobile draglines with scoop capacities of 15, 25, 40, and 100 cu m; gas and oil drilling rigs capable of sinking wells to depths of 4,000–8,000 m; drilling equipment for studies of the earth’s crust at depths up to 15,000 m; machines for making iron ore pellets, with working surfaces of 306 and 520 sq m; and the models 1150, 1300, and 1500 blooming mills, produced in unit with billet mills and section mills. As of Feb. 1, 1976, the state seal of quality has been awarded to 72 different pieces of equipment manufactured by the plant. The plant’s equipment is in great demand abroad, and deliveries have been made to 35 foreign countries.

The plant was rebuilt during the postwar years. By the end of 1975, output exceeded the original output by a factor of nine. At the same time as existing facilities are being renovated, new branch plants are being built; they include a plant producing standardized subassemblies and parts, a plant manufacturing welded metal structures, and a casting and forging plant. The scientific staff of the production association Uralmash has also grown: four doctors and 70 candidates of technical sciences work in various departments of the institute. Thirty-six staff members have been awarded the Lenin Prize and the State Prize of the USSR.

The Urals Heavy Machine-building Plant has been awarded two Orders of Lenin (1939 and 1944), the Order of the October Revolution (1971), the Order of the Red Banner (1945), the Order of the Patriotic War First Class (1945), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1942), and the Bulgarian Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1973).