Foundry technology in the 1990s; immense changes in metalcasting technology will mark the 1990s, offering both foundries and their suppliers challenges and opportunities.Foundry Technology in the 1990s Immense changes in metalcasting technology will mark the 1990s, offering both foundries and their suppliers challenges and opportunities. The next decade will be one filled with dramatic changes and opportunities for those willing to discard "old ways" and move progressively into the future. Changes occurring today and in the next decade will be second only to the Industrial Revolution. Those who can adapt to these changes will survive. Others, as we have already seen, will not. Iron casting production tonnages will continue to decrease as aluminum and other materials continue to capture a "larger share" of the casting business. In the automotive business, for example, all future passenger car cylinder heads and some truck heads will be aluminum. Aluminum blocks already are starting to make inroads inroads Noun, pl make inroads into to start affecting or reducing: my gambling has made great inroads into my savings inroads npl to make inroads into [+ . Weight reduction in our business is still an important driving force. The lighter we can make our iron castings, the less likely they will be replaced by aluminum or some other lighter material. The message is clear: The demand for near net shape iron castings will increase. Foundry customers' needs are changing dramatically. Those who respond adequately and timely to these needs will survive; those who do not will fall by the wayside way·side n. The side or edge of a road, way, path, or highway. adj. Situated at or near the side of a road, way, path, or highway: a wayside inn. . We, at the Casting Div of Ford, are committed to more effective involvement of suppliers to encourage their planning and input and ensure that mutually advantageous technologies are developed on a timely basis. This means the suppliers are our partners in our quest to meet the increasingly demanding needs of our casting customers. Customer Wants During the next decade, far greater demands will be placed on foundries by their customers than ever before as designers strive for optimum value while providing the best possible performance and reliability in components. In addition, these demands must be met while reducing the time required to take a product from concept to production. The cost of a casting will be evaluated in terms of its contribution to the total cost of a component. Factors such as machining, shipping costs, ease of repair and service life will be considered in determining a casting's value. Since virtually every step in a manufacturing process can affect total production economics and timing (and these steps are highly influenced by the basic design), a much closer working relationship must be established between design and manufacturing functions with the customer and the foundry. This link will be established in the early design stages and will be made possible by the interaction and implementation of new information systems, such as computer aided design (application) Computer Aided Design - (CAD) The part of CAE concerning the drawing or physical layout steps of engineering design. Often found in the phrase "CAD/CAM" for ".. manufacturing". and computer aided manufacturing stations at the customer and foundry. The complexity of castings will increase as designers strive to eliminate costly assembly operations by integrating functions while taking weight out of the assembly. Cast-in features and casting designs never before possible will emerge as design engineers realize and capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. the full potential of new processes, such as foam pattern casting (FPC fpc - A translator from Backus's FP to C. ftp://apple.com/comp.sources.Unix/Volume20. ). The close working relationship between customer and foundry, already mentioned, will assure an optimum design that provides good castability, highest reliability and lowest total manufactured cost. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , a casting that offers the highest value will be provided to the customer. As casting section sizes are reduced, improved tensile tensile, adj having a degree of elasticity; having the ability to be extended or stretched. properties will be required to maintain sufficient strength-to-weight ratios. It will be highly desirable from a cost standpoint to produce these properties in the as-cast condition. More specialized spe·cial·ize v. spe·cial·ized, spe·cial·iz·ing, spe·cial·iz·es v.intr. 1. To pursue a special activity, occupation, or field of study. 2. types of iron will be required, not only to satisfy the need for improved tensile properties but to meet increased demands in other areas, such as impact strength, fatigue strength, corrosion resistance, modulus of elasticity modulus of elasticity The ratio of the stress applied to a body to the strain that results in the body in response to it. The modulus of elasticity of a material is a measure of its stiffness and for most materials remains constant over a range of stress. and wear resistance. Ultra high-speed drilling, milling, tapping and boring will be extensively used in the mid-1990s. Machining rates will increase, on the average, by 200% over today's technology, with some operations having the potential to increase 500-1000%. With a cutting tool moving at these rates, hard spots cannot be tolerated. In a continuation of a trend already started, foundries will be asked to provide a machined casting that is ready for assembly. This will provide added incentive for the foundry to produce a near net shape casting. Casting customers will prefer those foundries that are capable of providing value-added features and a machined casting or component assembly. This also can be attractive from the foundry's perspective in terms of pricing and quality control. Casting Technology As we enter the next decade, the very nature of how foundries conduct business will change dramatically. Being a full-service supplier with design, testing, machining and development capability will be a must. Changes will touch all areas of a business from the organizational structure  This article has no lead section.To comply with Wikipedia's lead section guidelines, one should be written. to manufacturing facilities and beyond. Quality excellence will be expected in all areas of business, from casting design to follow-up at the customer's plant. Implementation of advanced technologies in foundries will accelerate to an extent never before seen in the industry. Leading this technological explosion will be a rapid evolution of the computer in design, engineering, manufacturing and office operations. Communications among all operations will be rapid, direct and will occur on a real-time basis, whether internal or external to the foundry. Computer aided design systems in the foundry will make it possible to interact directly with the customer in the design of castings and components. The use of techniques such as finite element analysis Finite element analysis (FEA) is a computer simulation technique used in engineering analysis. It uses a numerical technique called the finite element method (FEM). There are many finite element software packages, both free and proprietary. will be routine in the development and optimization optimization Field of applied mathematics whose principles and methods are used to solve quantitative problems in disciplines including physics, biology, engineering, and economics. of a casting design. Computer aided manufacturing will be used to generate required tooling without the time-consuming process of making models. This tooling will be very accurate because it will be produced directly from the data base developed jointly by product engineering and foundry tool and manufacturing engineers The profession of manufacturing engineer is defined as a person having the education and experience to understand and control manufacturing systems such as processes and/or automation, including industrial processes and equipment used to produce goods. . Multiple tooling sets will be produced rapidly and with extreme accuracy. Simulation technology, solidification so·lid·i·fy v. so·lid·i·fied, so·lid·i·fy·ing, so·lid·i·fies v.tr. 1. To make solid, compact, or hard. 2. To make strong or united. v.intr. modeling and computer aided engineering (application) Computer Aided Engineering - (CAE) Use of computers to help with all phases of engineering design work. Like computer aided design, but also involving the conceptual and analytical design steps. will enable the foundry to determine the castability of a design and to make modifications without the time-consuming stages used today in the production of prototype castings. All aspects of foundry processes used to produce castings--from the melt shop to the cleaning room--will be analyzed an·a·lyze tr.v. an·a·lyzed, an·a·lyz·ing, an·a·lyz·es 1. To examine methodically by separating into parts and studying their interrelations. 2. Chemistry To make a chemical analysis of. 3. and optimized in terms of productivity and quality using computer aided engineering. Computer aided manufacturing will be widespread in the foundries of the next decade. Artificial intelligence (AI) or expert systems on the foundry floor will provide a degree of process control never before seen. Material usage will be controlled by AI systems having a direct interface with chemical and metallurgical met·al·lur·gy n. 1. The science that deals with procedures used in extracting metals from their ores, purifying and alloying metals, and creating useful objects from metals. 2. analytical equipment in the lab and weights and measures weights and measures, units and standards for expressing the amount of some quantity, such as length, capacity, or weight; the science of measurement standards and methods is known as metrology. equipment on the foundry floor. Dispensing dispensing provision of drugs or medicines as set out properly on a lawful prescription. A prescription can only be filled, the drugs supplied, by a registered pharmacist, veterinarian, dentist or member of the medical profession. of these materials will be fully automated and tightly controlled by an AI system. Late adjustments to chemistry will be minimized by very precise control over charge makeup makeup In the performing arts, material used by actors for cosmetic purposes and to help create the characters they play. Not needed in Greek and Roman theatre because of the use of masks, makeup was used in the religious plays of medieval Europe, in which the angels' faces materials using AI. This system will go far beyond chemistry control by using a very sophisticated data base to select and order all charge materials on a least-cost charge makeup and just-in-time delivery basis. The data base will be just a small part of an extensive computer business system that will continuously monitor and make decisions that control cost and timing. Computer aided design, engineering, manufacturing and business systems will be brought together through one integrated system: CIM (1) (Computer-Integrated Manufacturing) Integrating office/accounting functions with automated factory systems. Point of sale, billing, machine tool scheduling and supply ordering are part of CIM. or computer integrated manufacturing (application) Computer Integrated Manufacturing - (CIM) http://dmtf.org/. . This system will be the ultimate manager in monitoring and making decisions on a plant's operation. Foundries will maintain and operate highly instrumented experimental and pilot facilities with the capability to provide customers with a fully machined casting for evaluation. These facilities will use CAD/CAM/CAE, as I mentioned previously, to provide castings in a fraction of the time it takes today. Fully equipped chemical, metallurgical, mechanical, physical and environmental laboratories for the analysis of foundry materials and processes will provide a high level of technical support. Core/Mold Technology In the area of molding and core processes, efforts will be concentrated on improved dimensional control and the production of a near net shape casting. To accomplish this on existing green sand mold mold, name for certain multicellular organisms of the various classes of the kingdom Fungi, characteristically having bodies composed of a cottony mycelium. The colors of molds are caused by the spores, which are borne on the mycelium. lines, more casting surfaces will be formed by cores and less by green sand. The use of cast-in-place inserts of a wide variety of materials will become more common to meet design and performance criteria. On-line monitoring of tooling, cores and molds for dimensional accuracy will be common. Self-diagnostic software and hardware on core and molding equipment will monitor key wear areas that affect dimensional accuracy so that corrective actions A corrective action is a change implemented to address a weakness identified in a management system. Normally corrective actions are instigated in response to a customer complaint, abnormal levels if internal nonconformity, nonconformities identified during an internal audit or can be taken before out-of-tolerance cores or castings are produced. Foam pattern casting, which already is well established in aluminum, will be producing near net shape iron castings. These FPC mold lines will be a substantial step toward the totally automatic foundry of the future that we have only talked about in the past. This process will be used extensively in producing thin-wall, lightweight ductile iron Ductile iron, also called ductile cast iron or nodular cast iron, is a type of cast iron invented in 1943 by Keith Millis[1]. While most varieties of cast iron are brittle, ductile iron is much more ductile, as the name implies. castings with outstanding strength and ductility ductility, ability of a metal to plastically deform without breaking or fracturing, with the cohesion between the molecules remaining sufficient to hold them together (see adhesion and cohesion). Ductility is important in wire drawing and sheet stamping. . The in-mold process for producing ductile iron will be applied to FPC and will also be used to eliminate trapped carbon from the breakdown of polystyrene polystyrene (pŏl'ēstī`rēn), widely used plastic; it is a polymer of styrene. Polystyrene is a colorless, transparent thermoplastic that softens slightly above 100°C; (212°F;) and becomes a viscous liquid at around 185°C; often encountered in producing castings with thin sections with this process. Austempered ductile iron castings will be well established in the castings marketplace by the mid-1990s. By the end of the next decade, ADI castings will be produced directly by controlled solidification and cooling of the casting. Compacted graphite graphite (grăf`īt), an allotropic form of carbon, known also as plumbago and black lead. It is dark gray or black, crystalline (often in the form of slippery scales), greasy, and soft, with a metallic luster. irons will find increased application in replacing forgings and producing near net shape castings that have strength properties that are between gray and ductile iron. Metal Melting/Holding Technology During the '90s many changes will occur in metal melting, holding, treating and pouring practices used in the foundry. Many of these changes will be in the category of refinements to existing processes; however, by the end of the decade innovative technology will take its place in the melt shop as well. We already are seeing the refinement of furnace furnace, enclosed space for the burning of fuel. There are many kinds of furnaces, the type depending upon the fuel and the use to which the heat produced within it is put. Most familiar are the furnaces used in the heating of buildings. designs to improve melt and holding furnace efficiencies. Metal level indicators, rotary nozzle An orifice in an inkjet print head through which ink is sprayed onto the paper. Print heads with six thousand or more nozzles are common in today's printers. Nozzle systems, electronic weighing and batching and automatic alloy additions are relatively recent innovations adapted from the basic steel industry. The optimization of charge makeup through the application of computer technology already has been implemented in some foundries and will be perfected in the next decade. Plasma-fired cupolas will be used increasingly as foundries strive to lower melt losses and charge material costs while reducing environmental problems. Computers in the next decade will literally run the melt shop. Programmed start-up cycles after relining an induction furnace An induction furnace is an electrical furnace in which the heat is applied by induction heating of a conductive medium (usually a metal) in a crucible around which water-cooled magnetic coils are wound. will be controlled so that the furnace will ramp in temperature, hold for the correct time and then go into a meltdown meltdown Occurrence in which a huge amount of thermal energy and radiation is released as a result of an uncontrolled chain reaction in a nuclear power reactor. The chain reaction that occurs in the reactor's core must be carefully regulated by control rods, which absorb mode. In a like manner, during operation the computer will monitor lining condition, metal temperature, metal level and mold line demand so that optimum power parameters are maintained. Adjustments to chemistry will be rapid, precise and made automatically after receiving input directly from laboratory analytical equipment. Metal holding and treatment will advance to the point where it will be possible to hold ductile iron for prolonged pro·long tr.v. pro·longed, pro·long·ing, pro·longs 1. To lengthen in duration; protract. 2. To lengthen in extent. periods without drastic losses in nucleating ability and temperature. This will be accomplished through the development of improved facilities and new treatment alloys that greatly reduce or eliminate the "fade" we presently experience. Inoculation inoculation, in medicine, introduction of a preparation into the tissues or fluids of the body for the purpose of preventing or curing certain diseases. The preparation is usually a weakened culture of the agent causing the disease, as in vaccination against to control microstructure mi·cro·struc·ture n. The structure of an organism or object as revealed through microscopic examination. microstructure Noun a structure on a microscopic scale, such as that of a metal or a cell will progress in much the same way as chemistry control. Chill depth, graphite type and shape and matrix microstructure data will be entered manually or automatically into a computer that will interface with appropriate ferroalloy ferroalloy Alloy of iron (less than 50%) and one or more other metals, important as a source of various metallic elements in the production of alloy steels. The principal ferroalloys are ferromanganese, ferrochromium, ferromolybdenum, ferrotitanium, ferrovanadium, feeders to dispense dispense /dis·pense/ (-pens´) to prepare medicines for and distribute them to their users. dis·pense v. To prepare and give out medicines. the needed alloy amount based on weight of metal. Automatic pouring in the next decade will become the norm for virtually all foundries, large and small, driven by the need for improved yield and better control over pouring temperature. The use of "contact pouring" methods will further enhance the integrity of castings by providing a uniform high-pressure head of slag-free hot metal to the mold cavity cavity /cav·i·ty/ (kav´i-te) 1. a hollow place or space, or a potential space, within the body or one of its organs. 2. in dentistry, the lesion produced by caries. . Foundry processes and machining operations in-house or at satellite manufacturing locations will be monitored and controlled on a real-time basis. A central data base will compare production process performance with historical data and pilot parameters. Machine vision systems will verify the surface and dimensional characteristics of the casting and machined part. Laser systems will code all parts for later problem analysis, if required. The castings produced must be of consistent quality for use in flexible machining systems and dimensional integrity, hardness and soundness must be assured for the unmanned manufacturing process of the future. Total Quality Excellence Just as foundries are expected to produce castings of outstanding quality, the same will be expected of their suppliers. Outstanding quality of product is, of course, a fundamental part of total quality excellence and an area that has been a topic of discussion for several years. However, total quality also includes engineering, delivery and commercial aspects. Engineering is taken in the broadest sense and includes all technical areas involved in producing a product. Delivery involves quality of performance in meeting all agreed upon Adj. 1. agreed upon - constituted or contracted by stipulation or agreement; "stipulatory obligations" stipulatory noncontroversial, uncontroversial - not likely to arouse controversy objectives to assure that all purchased materials are at the foundry when they are needed and not before. The commercial aspects deal with areas such as cost competitiveness, business capability and responsiveness to business issues. Quality excellence begins with the design of an alloy and continues through development and testing. Suppliers will need to maintain an excellent design liaison with the foundry industry and their customers in determining how a product can help solve not only foundry problems but also problems of the casting user. Since computer aided design, finite element analysis and process modeling techniques will be used by the foundry and casting users, suppliers also must have this capability. An adequate research and development activity must be maintained to develop new products in support of design needs. An integral part of this research and development activity is the laboratory capability for testing new and existing products. When a new or improved alloy is ready to be placed into production, quality excellence must continue in manufacturing and process engineering up to, through and following release of the material to the foundry industry. Failure mode effect analysis, manufacturing feasibility, use of statistical process controls and actual foundry evaluation are important parts of these engineering phases. Open communication and involvement with the foundry and casting user is of paramount importance at this point to assure that profitability exists for all parties. Specialized Irons More specialized types of irons will become common as the castings of the next decade compete with other materials and manufacturing methods. These irons must have increased strength, higher modulus of elasticity and improved profitability. Foundries of the next decade must have the flexibility and capability of producing near net shape casting with these irons. A greater variety of high-quality, specialized ferroalloys will be required to produce the chemistries and control the microstructures of these irons while maintaining adequate fluidity to feed much more complex castings with substantially reduced section size. In producing these irons and our standard irons in the foundry industry, we need to get back to basics Back to Basics may refer to:
Ultra high-speed machining methods will make increased control over hardness and microstructure essential. Specifications requiring less than a 20-point spread in hardness will be commonplace in the next decade. Meeting Customer Needs The dramatic changes in the foundry customer's needs will be the driving force for revolutionary changes in the foundry industry. These will be changes that will touch all areas of our business, technical and nontechnical alike. They also will have a profound effect on all of us in the 1990s. The challenges of the next decade are immense, but so are the opportunities for those who are willing to break away from tradition and be progressive. Suppliers and equipment makers in partnership will meet these challenges head-on as we arrive at innovative and profitable solutions. PHOTO : CAD/CAM CAD/CAM in full computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing. Integration of design and manufacturing into a system under direct control of digital computers. systems at both the customer and foundry will establish the link that enables PHOTO : closer working relationships during the early phases of casting design. PHOTO : During the next decade, computer aided manufacturing will be used to generate required PHOTO : tooling without the time-consuming process of making molds. PHOTO : Foam pattern casting, already well established in aluminum, will be used increasingly to PHOTO : produce near net shape iron castings. George N. Booth Casting Div/Ford Motor Co Dearborn, MI |
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