Implementation of Metal Casting Best Practices - EERE - U.S. ...

During their site visit, the team from Case Western took metal samples and measurements from
various points in the melting operation to check metal quality. They determined that the die
casting dip wells had four times the amount of oxides than that was present at the induction
furnace. The large amount of oxides in the metal can lead to porosity formation in the casting,
which is a significant cause of scrap. To increase total productivity, these oxides need to be
eliminated prior to the metal entering the die cavity.
Initially the facility’s management thought that Case Western’s findings were a mistake or a
misreading. The facility enlisted a second opinion from GKS Engineering. However, the results
from GKS were identical to Case Western’s research findings. GKS recommended that
Aluminum Casting Facility-1 install a degassing head, which they did. Once the degassing head
was installed, the oxides were virtually eliminated. Participation in university research has
proven critical to this facility’s success and has yielded a reduction in scrap rate due to oxides
entrapped in their aluminum castings.
Participated in Save Energy Now (SEN) Effort
As part of this effort, Aluminum Casting Facility-1 was provided background information on the
free tools and services offered by the ITP BestPractices program, including the Save Energy
Now solicitation that encourages large energy-using plants to apply for an Energy Saving
Assessment (ESA). Because of this, Aluminum Casting Facility-1 decided to apply and was
selected to be a recipient of ESA. A team of ESA experts visited their plant for several days and
audited their energy use. The ESA experts were all BestPractices-qualified specialists who are
skilled at using the BestPractices assessment and analysis software tools (PHAST, AirMaster+,
MotorMaster, etc.). The purpose of their assessment at Aluminum Casting Facility-1 was to
identify immediate opportunities to save energy and money, primarily by focusing on the process
heating systems (melting, holding, molten metal handling) and steam use (for fabricating the
EPS patterns). These processes were responsible for over half of the plant’s energy use. The
facility realized that savings achieved in these systems could dramatically reduce their annual
$10 million energy bill. Aluminum Casting Facility-1 realized that fine-tuning these systems
may cost little but offers the potential to yield large savings. Facility management also believed
that quick successes with optimizing these systems could lead to significant long-term savings
for their facility. The results of this assessment were not available at the time of writing this
report. To learn more about ESA results, please visit the Save Energy Now results site at:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/industry/saveenergynow/partners/results.cfm.
2. Conclusion
The assessment team found the operating practices at Aluminum Casting Facility-1 to be among
the best in all the plants evaluated. The facility and its management have participated and
benefited from the research from the CMC and ITP Metal Casting portfolio. These efforts have
proven valuable to the facility’s success in lost foam and die casting. The efforts at UAB for
measuring pattern permeability and pattern coatings have significantly benefited facility’s
pressurized lost foam production plant. Through their cost share efforts working with UAB and
Flow Science, this facility was able to work out the bugs with the Flow 3D model and make it
more useful for correcting design flaws before they cause manufacturing and quality problems.
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