Driving down part turnaround time whereas improving quality and decreasing waste is being achieved at Weir Minerals Africa’s exciting new Replicast Plant in Isando, Gauteng.
Umar Smith, plant manager at Weir Minerals Africa’s Isando facility, highlights that the innovative development allows the company to produce extra components at a time – and more quickly. This will help in meeting rising buyer demand, whereas also reducing rework and wastage.
“As part of our Project Vuka, this new plant permits us to solid a number of small components per batch rather than simply separately,” says Smith. “We can also reduce our knock-out instances from days to just a couple of hours.”
The state-of-the-art facilities enable Weir Minerals Africa to forged high chrome components weighing as much as 250 kg. There are เกจวัดแก๊ส to the brand new course of, he explains, which uses polystyrene to create moulds. The first part is the polystyrene moulding course of, which happens after the polystyrene beads have been expanded. The second part is the place the ramming, pouring and demoulding takes place.
In contrast to the normal moulding line – the place resin and catalyst are used to bind sand – the Replicast Plant makes use of silica sand of 30-35 AFS grade together with the polystyrene mould, he says. The system entails a vacuum bin, from which all the air is eliminated to compress the sand.
“The absence of resin and catalyst – as well as having no clamping course of – results in much less scrap being produced, and therefore brings operational savings,” he says. “The quality of castings can be raised, with a better floor end and fewer defects.”
He notes that the geometrical stability of components is improved, as there’s less fettling of the finished product thereby reducing dimensional variation between the identical components. This in turn contributes to the reliability of the tools utilizing those elements. He says the foundry may also realise important environmental advantages on account of using no chemical substances within the sand.
“This new plant aligns nicely with our company sustainability targets, making certain that our processes aren’t only compliant however continuously reduce our environmental impact,” says Smith. “ เครื่องมือความดัน ensure that fewer gases are emitted through the casting process, and there are zero emissions of dangerous substances similar to benzene.”
The new know-how is also resulting in much less frequent disposal of silica sand, and the sand itself is more environmentally friendly because it incorporates no resin or acid.
“A remarkable facet of growing this new plant was the fact that it was accomplished with our local skills and largely in the course of the COVID-19 lockdowns,” he says. “Despite the novelty of this know-how, and the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, it was successfully carried out on time and inside budget.”
The plant includes greater than sixteen,000 individual elements, and makes use of over 1,900 m of cabling, 300 m of water piping and fifty five tons of metal.
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