Metalcasters 'Plan for the Future' at Annual Industrial Energy Efficiency Symposium.

As part of the Dept. of Energy (DOE)-Office of Industrial Technologies 4th Industrial Energy Efficiency Symposium, held February 19-22 in Washington, D.C., casting industry representatives discussed priorities for the "Metal Casting Industry of the Future" partnership.

The program began under 1990's Metal Casting Competitiveness Research Act, which addresses lack of investment in metalcasting R&D. In 1996, the Metal Casting Competitiveness Research Program became part of the initiative, and the industry developed "Vision" (1995) and "Roadmap" (1998) documents. It is industry's challenge to clarify R&D priorities for the next 10-25 years, said Raymond Monroe, Steel Founders' Society of America, who introduced the talk.

The meeting was facilitated by Dwight Barnhard, AFS, and Paul Mikkola, Hitchiner Manufacturing Co., Inc. New issues have arisen since the Vision and Roadmap were first developed, such as energy costs and climate change. Participants identified major challenges as: human resources with technical and business skills; overseas competition; past perceptions; providing quality parts; new market development; government regulation; time to market; time-to-change; and effective use of new technology.

Participants indicated where the DOE should focus research, including continued emphasis on university-based training and leveraging coalitions for cost-shared research. Overall, three primary areas for future research were identified: reducing energy consumption and process variation and improving engineering knowledge.

To reduce energy consumption, better data are needed on current energy use patterns and opportunities. Harvey Wong, DOE, explained that there are 50 projects in the current metalcasting research portfolio. Eighty percent of these are focused on saving energy through higher yield/reduced scrap. Another 10% are targeted toward process control, and about 10% address knowledge engineering.