Large Foundry Research Articles

Decarbonization of Production Systems in Foundries

The article discusses the growing importance of decarbonization of production systems in the foundry industry as a response to climate challenges and increasing requirements for sustainable development. The process of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in foundry production is caused by a number of reasons. Decarbonization of the foundry industry refers to actions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide (CO2). Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is increasingly being considered as a key element of the strategy of both small and large foundries around the world. Foundry is one of the industries that generates significant amounts of carbon dioxide emissions due to the energy consumption in the process of melting and forming metals. There is virtually no manufacturing industry that does not use elements cast from iron, steel or non-ferrous metals, ranging from elements made of aluminum to zinc. The article presents various decarbonization strategies available to foundries, such as: the use of renewable energy, the use of more efficient melting technologies, or the implementation of low-energy technologies throughout the production process. Application examples from different parts of the world illustrate how these strategies are already being put into practice, as well as the potential obstacles and challenges to full decarbonization.

Prospects and directions of digital transformation in foundry

The time of information technology determines its priorities, which are a prerequisite for building a competitive production and economy. The ubiquitous spread of digitalization is one of the basic principles of new economy, a new type of socio–economic structure that is gradually being formed in the modern world through the introduction of scientific and technological progress and innovative methods of management, intellectualization and capitalization of human knowledge, the use of advanced new information and material technologies, accelerated development of knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy, the formation of creative, efficient, rational information and material production. Currently, at large foundries with mass and large-scale production of castings, the task of automating the control of technological processes using digital control systems was solved in general. They implement algorithms for controlling technological processes of casting in closed circuits (locally). The systems under consideration allow to implement optimal control strategies and automatically perform sequences of operations (start and stop of equipment; calculation and input of metal charge; calculation of formulations, dosing and mixing of molding and core mixtures) of multi-stage periodic casting processes. Digital transformation can significantly change the established practice of foundry production (from direct control and management of technological processes to business planning and document management). The transformation will have an impact on all parameters of the enterprise: economic efficiency of production (productivity, operating costs); reliability (operational readiness); safety (number of incidents); compliance with legislative norms on ecology. The technological criterion for success of the digital transformation of foundry production will be the release of a nomenclature of castings with a minimum level of defect, commercial – the release of a nomenclature of castings in demand on the market (machine parts and mechanisms), with a minimum self-cost, which is determined by the technological level of preparation of the production and its implementation and, as a consequence, low costs and optimal quality of molds, metal and castings.

MQTT protocol for SME foundries: potential as an entry point into industry 4.0, process transparency and sustainability

The foundry industry with its casting processes and conditions create the basis for the quality of the final metallic components. The control of the process parameters is therefore of primary importance. Topics such as Industry 4.0, digitalisation, Internet of Things or Big Data allowing for a new grade of process monitoring but so far are mainly practiced by a few large foundries, which have started early with the digitalisation of their processes due to the high degree of automation already in place. Small and medium-sized foundries on the other hand often struggle with these issues. Concrete, comprehensible solutions are missing from the point of view of many medium-sized foundries without competences in the new IT-related topics. As the innovative backbone of industry, however, SMEs must also find and enter into this new world of manufacturing. Taking the example of, but not limited to, SME aluminium foundries, the topic presented here therefore aims at a basic and practicable approach for the digital monitoring of the most important process parameters during the production of aluminium castings. The Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) communication protocol in combination with suitable microcontrollers, sensor technology as well as corresponding professional open-source software could provide a comprehensive, cost-effective infrastructure for real-time monitoring and visualisation of all relevant process data. In the sense of horizontal integration, the work demonstrates an implementable concept for the appropriate integration of the necessary components and their software-technical linking as well as the associated potential for process transparency, reproducibility and sustainability.

Interruptions in the wild: portraying the handling of interruptions in manufacturing from a distributed cognition lens

This paper presents a study examining interruptions in the wild by portraying the handling of interruptions in manufacturing from a distributed cognition lens. By studying how interruptions occur and are handled in the daily activities of a work team at a large foundry for casting heavy diesel engines, we highlight situations when the propagation, transformation, and representation of information are not supported by prescribed work processes and propose recommendations for how this can be amended. The study was conducted by several visits to the aforementioned factory with cognitive ethnography as the basis for the data collection. The focus was on identifying interruptions and analysing these through a distributed cognition framework as an initial step towards studying interruptions in a manufacturing environment. The key findings include the identification of three, previously undefined, types of interruptions and the conclusion that interruptions do indeed affect the distributed workload of the socio-technical system and thus the overall production performance at the casting line.

Reconstruction of Silica Exposure at a Foundry for Evaluation of Exposure–Response

The reconstruction of working lifetime exposures to silica at a large foundry was described. Through the use of interviews with long-term employees, a history of the facility was developed for the years 1960–90, areas of similar work activities were identified and work locations for those with various job titles were documented over time. Two thousand and seventy historical industrial hygiene measurements of exposure collected during these three decades were linked to work area and an estimate of average respirable silica concentration was calculated for each area, by year. Overall, exposures declined between 1960 and 1990; however, substantial differences in exposure were estimated across work areas. Exposure at a specific job was calculated from the estimates of work-area respirable silica concentration, weighted by the amount of time persons with that job were in the area. These job-related exposure estimates were used to calculate three exposure metrics for persons employed in the foundry: cumulative, working lifetime average and highest daily exposure.

Design and implementation of a maintenance planning and control system

In this paper, a preventive maintenance (PM) planning and control system designed and implemented in a large foundry is presented. The system designed and implemented is part of the measures taken by the top management to increase the scope and effectiveness of PM activities within the production facility. In this paper, first, shortcomings of the previous system are stated. Then, a systematic approach to bring about a well functioning and effective maintenance planning and control system is presented. The heart of the new system is a custom tailored software containing data management, PM task scheduling and performance evaluation modules, and these are discussed in the paper. Furthermore, a priority function developed for the selection of the PM tasks for scheduling is also introduced and discussed.

Decay of the acoustic reflex under impact and steady-state noise exposure

Acoustic reflex (AR) activity of seven normal hearing young adults was monitored continuously during a 15 mn monaural exposure to impact or steady-state noises of identical spectra. The impact noise was a recording of the flattening mill in a large foundry; the crest factor varied from 14 to 23 dB and the repetition rate was approximately 80 impacts per second. Both noise conditions were presented at a rms SPL of 106 dB. AR activity was measured through changes in acoustic conductance at the eardrum using a 660-Hz probe tone. The AR decreased to 30% of its original value after a 15-mn exposure to either noise condition. In terms of absolute values, the steady state noise induced significantly higher amounts of AR activity, as measured at the onset and at the offset of the noise. The AR decay values for the two conditions were significantly correlated (spearman rho) despite the absence of any corresponding relationship between magnitudes of on or off responses.

Functional Components of the Ferrous Scrap Industry in a Selected Portion of the Southeastern U. S.

In recent years, new electric steel mills have been built and total electric steel mill production has increased substantially in the south- eastern United States. For several years, the Southeast has been an excess producer of ferrous scrap—the basic raw material used in electric steel mill production. (1) Ferrous scrap, particularly scrap steel, can be used in varying quantities in all types of steel-making furnaces: the open-hearth, electric, basic oxygen (BOF), and Bessemer. Only electric- arc steel-making furnaces, however, are currently used in the area con- sidered by this paper, and they are charged almost exclusively with steel scrap. Electric furnace steel producers depend almost exclusively on the scrap industry for their basic raw material. Purchased scrap con- sumption for electric mills ranges from 75 to 100 percent of the total scrap consumed, depending on whether or not mill-revert scrap is con- sidered as a separate source. Cast iron is not purchased or consumed by steel mills. For the most part, it is bought and used by large foundries located in the Birmingham-Anniston, Alabama, area. STUDY AREA. This paper focuses on the functional components of the ferrous scrap industry currently providing essential raw materials for five electric steel mills located in three Southeastern states. These five steel producers are located in a relatively compact geographical area within Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Since all five mills are electric, they are dependent on ferrous scrap as a raw material. The outer boundary of their collective raw materials supply area thus serves

The Impact Of Air Pollution Laws On the Small Foundry

The paper briefly describes the foundry industry and its basic place in the international economy. It compares various air pollution laws in the United States and Canada and the cost of compliance with them for the small foundry. Large foundries, usually captive ones, operated by large industries are not considered because the cost of control equipment for them does not present the serious financial problem confronting the small shop. The effluents from the gray iron cupola are the most difficult to control when one compares them with those from electric melting furnaces. The question of why gray iron foundries do not replace cupolas with electric melting furnaces is answered by presenting an analysis of cupola melting costs vs electric melting costs.it has to be cheaper to melt iron with a cupola than with electric furnaces. If a small foundry could afford the cost of electric furnaces, electric sub-station and increased melting costs, it could afford to continue using a cupola equipped with a bag house....

Pipe Casting at Pont-A-Mousson

In April, 1920, during a visit to M. Ed. Imbeaux, Ingenieur de Ponts et Chaussees at Nancy, France, the speaker had the pleasure of visiting the pipe foundry of the Societe Anonyme des Hauts-Fourneaux et Fonderies at Pont-a-Mousson, France. As this is one of the two most important pipe foundries in France and as it went through an interesting experience during the war, perhaps a few notes in regard to the visit may be worth placing on record. Pont-a-Mousson is a small town north of Nancy on the Moselle River. It is in the region of the iron mines. The foundry was established in 1856. In 1879 the works covered 435 acres and employed over 1500 men. Just before the war the plant covered 4200 acres and had 6000 employees. It included five blast furnaces, twelve cupolas for melting the iron, foundry buildings which covered ten acres, two large shops, a power station and the dock on the river nearly half a mile long. In 1914 it had a capacity of 300,000 tons of castings a year, of which 150,000 tons represented cast iron pipe. The company also manufactured slag brick and cement. Its iron mines had an annual capacity of over a million tones of ore. The company also operates another large foundry at Foug, near Toul. Most of the cast iron pipe manufactured is known as universal or City of Paris pattern, but pipes of English, Swedish, and German patterns are also made. All pipes are coated with coal tar or Angus Smith coating and are tested under a pressure of 500 to 800 feet of water as required before coating. The French pipe differs somewhat from the American pipe. In general it is thinner and has heavier bells. The listed weights for light and heavy pipe correspond approximately to Classes A and В of the American Water Works specifications. All pipes have uniform outside diameters so that the thicker pipes have slightly less capacity than the