CERP program represents tomorrow's foundry.

With MACT standards looming, the industry has a resource for evaluating new materials and processes to reduce foundry emission-related problems.

The 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) may force many foundries to close or move offshore due to their inability to meet regulations on air toxic compounds which take effect by the turn of the century.

Title III of the CAA increased the number of regulated hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) from seven to 189. In 2000, these HAP emissions will be subject to the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing. As a result, foundries will be required to invest more money in added pollution capture and control devices, possibly forcing more foundry closings.

Finding a Solution

In 1991, the Big Three automakers created the U.S. Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) with the purpose of focusing automotive industry R&D resources toward joint projects to benefit the entire industry. In 1994, USCAR and the U.S. government signed an agreement to share facilities, resources and data with the objective of conducting research and developing the technology to reduce foundry HAP emissions. The legal arrangement is based on a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between USCAR and the Dept. of Defense (DOD).

About $50 million is being funded by Congress (through the Advanced Research Project Agency) for five years towards the joint project. The Casting Emissions Reduction Program (CERP) sets up a casting R&D facility at McClellan Air Force Base, Sacramento, California; provides funds for foundry source testing; and funds the American Industry Government Emissions Research (ALGER) program for low-level manufacturing and vehicle emissions testing. The CERP pilot foundry offers other foundries a production facility where various existing and new technologies can be tested, without having to shut down production at their own foundries.

Program Goals

Managed by a committee of three voting members - the CRADA partners, USCAR and the McClellan AFB - and three nonvoting members - AFS, the U.S. EPA and the California EPA Air Resources Board (CARB), a main goal of CERP is to assist the CRADA partners' iron foundries to meet Title III HAP and MACT standards and Title V standards expected by the year 2000.

A first step in the process has been to develop an emission database and create an emissions measurement team. The team will assemble the existing databases of the Big Three into one database, including all information on:

* gaseous emissions (CO, C[O.sub.2], N[O.sub.x], S[O.sub.2] and total hydrocarbons);

* particulate matter (size, distribution and trace element analysis);

* HAPs and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

In-Plant Emissions Testing - Much of the available iron foundry emissions data is incomplete and is not organized in a standardized format. To provide the missing information, data will be collected at each of the domestic automotive companies' gray iron foundries. To accomplish this, three activities have been undertaken:

* a technical team at McClellan AFB has been trained in foundry stack emission sampling and measurement techniques;

* a mobile laboratory has been outfitted with air pollution measurement instrumentation to allow the team to perform the necessary measurements at foundries;

* agreements with the EPA and state regulatory agencies are being established for the collection of the plants' emission data and their ultimate use for supporting the development of the MACT standards.

Correlation of Foundry Emissions to CERP Pilot Foundry - The CERP pilot foundry is constructed with special collection facilities that allow measurements at each key emission source location. This includes melting, metal treating, metal transfer, pouring, mold line cooling, casting shakeout, cleaning and finishing, mold sand preparation, molding, mold coating, coremaking, core coating, core baking and core storage.

Once the pilot foundry is operating, the emissions measurement team will collect data and assemble a database. The database will be correlated to the sources, comparisons to actual automotive foundry production data will be made, and any discrepancies will be noted and accounted for.

The Pilot Foundry

The pilot foundry is designed to use existing Big Three foundry system sand shipped from the Midwest. This permits the pilot to develop a stable foundry green sand system and develop baseline emission data. As a result of the sophisticated database that CERP will assemble, the program will identify emission-reduction opportunities for seacoal replacements and organic core binders. If new processes/materials are shown to reduce emissions, they could be validated for existing CRADA partner foundries, so as to allow them to meet MACT standards without a large capital investment in new abatement equipment.

A key feature of the facility is the ability to collect emissions fromindividual sources, make unique measurements, and monitor the molds, cores and castings produced. Because of the unique process measurement and computer data-collection equipment, the CERP foundry will be the only production-like facility in the U.S. that can obtain sufficient data to assemble complete casting quality, foundry processing and emissions data relationships.

The initial test casting will be a gray iron 1.9 liter I-4 engine block [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. The production (molding) rate will be 50 engine blocks per hour for 2 hr (I-4 or small V-6). There will be sufficient coremaking capacity to produce and store enough cores to produce 125 mold sets. Core sand will be thermally reclaimed and recycled back to the coreroom. Mold sand can also be thermally reclaimed, as needed for testing.

In addition to the pilot foundry, there is a small pre-production area that will allow up to five engine blocks to be molded and cast. This facility will be specially shrouded and hooded so that emissions from new mold additives and core binders can be collected continuously during pouring, cooling and shakeout.

Modeling Overview

An important part of the CERP project is to model the entire foundry process. This is to determine the influence of the process and material on the quality, productivity and emissions from foundries. Modeling will include:

* foundry systems;

* advanced modeling methodologies for the factory of the future: development of virtual reality models, ergonomics, advanced statistical analysis and design of experiments, production process modeling based on processing sensor data, neural network and fuzzy logic capability to relate process, emissions and casting quality;

* predictive models for emissions: air and water emissions, solid waste and worker exposure as a function of the thermal, chemical and manufacturing environment;

* detailed micro-modeling of the physical and chemical phenomena: metal flow and solidification; chemical transformation as a function of temperature, time and environment.

Testing Protocol

Stage 1. Request for Test - Prior to submitting a request to test, a supplier must produce data showing significant environmental improvement and other potential cost-benefit attributes of a new process. Then, a standard secrecy agreement will be established to protect the supplier's product recipe and process specific procedures, while allowing CERP to use the emission and casting results as well as CERP-developed techniques. The CERP teams will review the proposals and determine if the materials and processes conform to the CERP goals and whether they are suitably mature for investigation. All materials and processes must be commercially viable for testing beyond stage 2 and the supplier must supply material safety data sheets (MSDSs) and the binder additive for testing.

Stage 2. Pre-production Testing - Molds and/or cores will be produced according to the processing defined by the supplier either on the CERP I-4 block tooling or on the supplier's tooling. Cores will be made in an environmentally controlled coreroom according to supplier specifications. Critical sections of the core will be coated, as required, and a complete core package will be assembled and placed in the molds.

Five engine block castings will be produced in the pre-production foundry for initial environmental and functional review of the new core binders and mold additive replacements. A pre-production report will be prepared with emission and casting attribute results. The report will be provided to the sender and the CERP Teams.

Stage 3. Pilot Foundry Run - If the materials/processes pass Stage 2 review, a full 100 casting, 2 hr run (at 50 molds per hr) will be performed to statistically evaluate the impact of the new core/mold processes on emissions. The evaluation will delineate the impact on casting quality, using the extensive non-destructive and metallurgical laboratory facilities available, and on overall foundry operations, using sophisticated process monitoring equipment.

The new coremaking materials or mold seacoal replacements will be monitored to ensure that there are no significant effects on the productivity of the foundry operations.

There will be a detailed study of the overall casting attributes including metallurgical quality, critical dimensions, casting machinability and casting cleaning requirements (including retained core sand).

Stage 4. Post Run Cost-Benefit Analysis - To show that the new processes are economically viable, an initial cost-benefit and feasibility analysis will be performed, by determining the cost of the new process vs. base process in terms of raw materials, process control requirements, facilities and tooling, maintenance, labor, core/mold and casting scrap and/or rework, and manufacturing risks. This information will guide individual foundries in the potential economics of using the new materials and processes.

Stage 5. Multiple Pilot Foundry Runs - If a low emissions material successfully passes through the previous testing, a last stage of investigation will be performed. A stable green sand molding system will be developed by cycling through several complete coremaking sand reclamation, mold sand preparation, green sand molding and casting foundry cycles to ensure that the sand system doesn't become contaminated.

At this stage, it will also be determined if there are additional recycling and/or disposal issues required that may prevent commercial use of the new materials. In addition, the process control variable limits will be determined. These variables include the bench life of the mixed sand vs. temperature/relative humidity environments, resin/sand variables, core/mold strength and core surface characteristics. The strip time, cycle rates and productivity will be monitored and the maintenance requirements determined.

CERP's Progress

Today the project is in the pits and foundation stage of construction. The equipment should be installed this month, and acceptance testing is scheduled to begin in October.

Barring any major glitches, the pilot foundry will start experimentation in January 1997. At that time, the facility will have gray iron capability, but the ductile iron and aluminum casting capabilities will come later.