Ford Unveils Cleveland Aluminum Casting Plant.

Just six weeks after its official opening, this precision sand casting facility's 'Job 1' aluminum block launch--for Ford's new global engine--comes due this month.

It isn't every day that you see a commitment to domestic casting production that accompanies the opening of a 210,000-sq-ft facility, as Ford did in late July with the official opening of its Cleveland Aluminum Casting Plant (CACP) in Brook Park, Ohio. The new casting facility is noteworthy on several planes-- it represented a $130-million investment, was Ford's first domestic greenfield facility of any kind in North America over the last 5 years, employs an innovative advanced casting technology and aims to be a model of efficiency.

Constructed on the same 365acre, 5000-employee site that houses two engine plants and a gray iron foundry that shipped nearly 300,000 tons of iron castings last year (including the family of block being converted to aluminum), the new facility also represents a louder signaling of' the changing of the guard... from iron to aluminum.

A lot of the changes in automotive casting supply stem from this rule of thumb--for every 100 lb of weight engineers can remove from a vehicle, there's an increase of 0.5/mile in fuel efficiency. Fuel concerns and the always-on-the-horizon tightening of corporate average fuel economy standards are big reasons why the forecast for aluminum's share of car and light vehicle engine block applications is expected to explode by 48% over the next 10 years.

Initially, the new CACP facility will produce 110,000 aluminum engine blocks/yr for Ford's new global inline four-cylinder engine family, the 14, which makes its North American debut with the 2001 Ford Ranger. The 2.3-liter 14 engine will be assembled at the Engine & Fuel Tank Plant in Dearborn, Michigan.

Reflecting how the site went from an open grass field 2 years ago to its opening in late July, Bob Smillie, plant manager of the Cleveland Engine and Aluminum Plants, characterized the facility as "a world-class manufacturing plant with the latest technology and equipment." Its advanced metal-filling technology, minimal manual intervention (25 robots throughout the plant are responsible for the critical core handling, setting and assembly, among other things), record-keeping and production flow reflect some of best practices of today's casting industry.

Casting Process Selection

"The 14 global engine family will deliver class-leading performance, sound quality, reliability and durability while its lightweight construction and flex-fuel capability will improve fuel economy and reduce emissions," said Roman Krygier, vice president, Ford Powertrain Operations. "It's a tremendously important engine for Ford." While an all-new engine design, this family of block had previously been cast in gray iron.

Similar to the process pioneered at the Ford Windsor Aluminum Casting facility, Windsor, Ontario, the new Cleveland plant will employ a variation of the level-controlled electric holding furnace. From here, the aluminum is electromagnetically pumped to a mouthpiece nozzle, which attaches to the gasket on the side of the core package. "It is truly technically advanced metal filling," said Vas.

Preheat/Filling

The power-and-free conveyor brings the packages to the melting/filling area where they are placed onto an induction heater. The cast iron liners are induction-heated through openings in the base of the package. This 20-sec process is necessary to prevent coldshuts between the iron and the molten aluminum.

Following preheat, another gantry picks up the package and places it into the four-station turntable and rollover. Each pouring station clamps the package, and rotates it upside-down. Thus the "top" of the block becomes the bottom and is the first part of the casting to receive molten aluminum. The table is then rotated 900 to present the core package and nozzle to the molten aluminum pump delivery system.

Once the package is fully extended and sealed to the nozzle, the control console initiates the filling cycle (20 sec for filling, total of 37 sec). After filling is complete, the mold is rotated back into the car position and is decoupled, rotated another 90[degrees] before another gantry picks up the still-molten package and transfers it to a tray at the post-casting processing system load station. Each tray holds six packages.

Post-Casting Processing

The thermal sand removal system (TSR) serves three functions--it burns off the sand from the casting, calcines the sand for reuse and provides a solution heat treatment to the casting. To pass through all 22 zones of the process takes 7.5 hr. If the blocks don't receive the proper quench treatment, the system automatically reprocesses them. No casting impregnation steps are necessary.

Following the TSR treatment, the blocks are passed to a tray return line, where robots remove the finished blocks from the car and pass them to a riser removal cutoff saw. From there, the parts go through a deflashing line, a rapper to shake loose any remaining sand, and are presented to a rotary style blastcleaning unit, which features a two-block manipulator that indexes the blocks to the blastwheels. The blocks pass through a shared wall with the engine plant, are presented to a cubing line and then to a high-pressure desanding/cleaning washer.

Following inline testing (on all blocks) to identify any leaks or blocked passages, a gantry loads the completed blocks in dunnage for direct shipment to Dearborn.

Gearing Up

Generally, the move toward cast aluminum blocks has occurred slower than previously expected due to cost issues. Ford, however, believes that its ability to further tweak the process and incorporate changes that remove unnecessary costs from their system will make its process even more competitive. "Silica is less costly," said Nakonek. "Plus, we use a cast-over liner design (vs. the iron liner protruding the surface at the deck interface). This way, machining only cuts aluminum, vastly reducing tool wear."

There is no time for hiccups, with the "Job 1" launch deadline for the new engine this month. The facility must be delivering full production quantities by January. The capacity of the plant is 310,000 blocks/yr, about triple its first year projections. However, the facility was designed for a family of products and the plant will be called on as greater volumes or even different products are needed. Ample floor space exists for a second filling station.

The site's two foundries and two engine plants have turned the Brook Park location into quite a manufacturing complex with 5000 employees, prompting Krygier to call it a "second home" of Ford. The 2500-employee, green sand iron foundry (which makes cylinder heads, manifolds, flywheels and bearing caps in addition to seven block programs) has a significant challenge on its hands, and is reminded of it daily by its new nextdoor neighbor. It now must significantly sharpen its manufacturing costs and/or succeed with newer techniques or materials, such as compacted graphite iron.

As Krygier said, "A lot of hope and excitement existed when the plant went up here. People realized that although a significant volume of iron was being replaced, there would also be a state-of-the-art aluminum operation to gain from."

Ford Cleveland Aluminum Casting Plant

Brook Park, Ohio

Official plant opening--July 27, 2000

Product Data: Aluminum 319 engine blocks for 2001 Ford Ranger.

Molding/Coremaking: Phenolic urethane Coldbox process.

Melting: Gas-tired reverberatory furnace.

Size: 210,000 sq ft.

Capacity: 310.000 blocks/yr.

Year Opened: 2000.

Employees: 95.

Staff Officials: Bob Smillie, plant manager; John Vas, launch manager; Charles Nakonek, lead engineer-launch; Anil Gogate, quality control manager; Mike Regas, manager-material procurement and logistics; and Joseph Verga, controller.

Ford's Precision Sand Casting Process

Ford's Precision Sand Casting Process is a modification of the process patented by Cosworth Technology that was developed for high-volume production through a Cosworth/Ford alliance more than 10 years ago. Cosworth (today a 1000-employee foundry group with three sites in the United Kingdom) advanced the technology in the 1970s due to porosity and dimensional and fatigue life problems with Formula One racing engines. In the late I980s, the possibility of adapting the process high-volume began to be explored.

In Ford's process (see Fig. I), coldbox cores are assembled into a single core/mold package that forms both the internal and external surfaces of the block. The molten aluminum is pumped from the furnace to the mold and enters the base of the upside-down package through gates. These gates, together with the pump control system, control filling and provide pressure-assisted feeding. The absence of conventional gating and feeding systems, and the elimination of convection through the rollover scheme, results in castings that are free of porosity and inclusions.

"The molten aluminum is never disturbed by transfer to ladles or dipping or pouring as in other processes," said Vas. "Molds are quietly and slowly filled from the bottom of the cavity, resulting in a, sound, high-quality block." Currently, the yield on the 60-lb block is about 75%, with further optimization of riser size still on the way. Internal scrap (including machining) is currently less than 5%.

A Lineage Began In Windsor

George N. Booth, retired general manager of Ford's Casting Div., recalled the automaker's move toward the innovative casting process in the late '80s and the resulting Windsor Aluminum Plant that followed it.

"A lot of processes were available for blocks," he recalled. "But we just felt that to be competitive in an industry with high labor rates, a breakthrough technology was needed for competitive reasons. Cosworth was a name recognized throughput the world. If we could take this low-volume, quality-driven technique and successfully convert it to high-volume production, we knew we'd be leapfrogging the industry.

Ford signed a 10-year licensing agreement in 1988 that gave it exclusive rights for high-volume production. Because Ford had never produced an aluminum engine block inhouse, the entire process was trialed at Ford's Cast Aluminum Research & Development (CARD) facility, a $6-million pilot operation that was occupied just 90 days after the then-cornfield site received permit approval.

What Booth and his team found was that the process provided numerous advantages. "We didn't need to be as concerned with draft, and we achieved a significant weight reduction by coring nonfunctional areas. Plus, by rotating the package, traditional risers weren't needed." The foundry proved the process on production equipment/tooling and volumes before Booth signed the appropriation request for the Windsor Aluminum Plant facility, which was eventually built next door to the CARD facility. The first metal was poured in August 1992, making Ford the first to demonstrate the unique process at mass production (1.2-million castings/yr).

In talking about the risks Ford embraced at the time, Booth said most companies won't head out of the gate with all four of the P's in tow (meaning starting up with a new product with a new process, new plant and new people all at one time). "It was never a given that it would be sourced inside; the business could have been awarded to anyone. But we proved the process at a true cost advantage, below what was being achieved by independent foundries."