Report of The 3rd ASIAFORGE MEETING (3rd AFM) (2)

There were six sections in the 3^rd AFM: Registration and 5th AsiaForge Representative Meeting on Sep. 12^th, World Expo 2010 Tour on Sep. 13^th, Reports and Presentations on Sep. 14^th, Table-top Display on Sep. 14^th, Welcome Banquet on Sep. 14^th, and Plant Tour on Sep. 15^th to 16^th.

 

The whole day was registration time, and nearly 600 people from 16 countries and regions have registered.

In the afternoon, from 16:00 to 18:00, the presidents, chairmen, secretary generals and other staffs from each association of ASIAFORGE took part in the 5th AsiaForge Representative Meeting. In that meeting, firstly they briefly introduced the trend of the forging industry in each country or area, then discussed the development of ASIAFORGE. After CCMI introducing the preparation for the 3rd AsiaForge Meeting, they made a decision that Korea Forging Cooperative (K.F.C.) to hold the next AsiaForge Meeting.

 

On that day, all the delegates visited World Expo 2010 Shanghai China, one of the best and most exceptional Expos in history. Under the slogan of ¡°Better City, Better Life¡±, all the delegates have been deeply impressed by World Expo 2010 Shanghai China.

 

7 Industrial reports from each association, 7 technical presentations from excellent forging companies and 9 business presentations from equipment companies had been presented to the delegates. Details as follows:

 

Indian Forging Industry is a significant contributor to the manufacturing sector of the Indian economy, and an integral part of the Indian and global automotive industries. Classified by forging methods, closed die forging companies occupy 63%, open die forging companies occupy 12%, and others 25% in Indian forging industry. From April 2009 to March 2010, Indian forging production has up to 1.8 MMT. The Auto Industry is the mainstay of forging demand even today (about 70% of the total forging production). If the growth of Auto industry in the last two years is any indication, the future demand from this segment will be the significant growth driver for Indian Forging Industry. The Challenges of Indian forging industry: volatile international and domestic prices of forging quality steel, non-availability of trained manpower at shop floor and managerial level, high attrition rates, impact of the rising rupee and its adverse effect on exports, and high cost of energy, especially oil.

Grand total weight of Japan forging production in 2009 is 1,470,287 tons, increased by 57.2% compared with 2008. Current problems of Japan forging industry are as follows: high energy consumption, high work noise and high environmental loads, many low-value-added forgings weighing on management, experience-dependent designing as one of the causes of time-consuming preparation for production, and how to meet a requirement to further reduce costs to bolster competitiveness. Future challenges: build environment-friendly forging lines high in yields but low in CO₂ emission, forge high-precision and light-weight parts with strong cost competitiveness, realize rational production in which processes is shorter, the percentage of rejects is lower and die life is longer, shorten the term of preparation for production by utilizing IT.

 

From the end of 2008 to the middle of 2009, Korean forging industry was panic according to global financial crisis. But it has recovered since the 3Q of 2009 due to automobile industry. The hot issue in smes. of Korean forging industry is the profitability which was worsen by imbalance between raw materials price & sales price, despite the growth in sales. The exports in 2008 were 113,976 tons, while the imports were 126,873 tons. The facing opportunities of Korea forging industry are expansion of developing countries¡¯ market, increase in demand for Korean forging goods, policy of promote root (production-based) industry. The facing threats of Korea forging industry are increase in raw material prices & costs, rapid growth of competing countries, and over-investment in open die forging.

 

Between the first half of 2009 and the first half of 2010, the number of orders gained by Taiwan players in forging industry increased by about 30% on average. If the market continues to gain momentum, it is expected that the various category of the forging industry will be able to return to the peak level in 2008. Small quantity and more diversity is the business style of enterprises in Taiwan. The forging industry in Taiwan mainly depends on export sale. Future for Taiwan forging industry: demand for new forging process technology, application for new materials, to enhance the capability and precision of forging press machine, and development in new markets.

 

Annual production and turnover of European Forging industry in 2009 respectively are 4.2 million tons and 9.2 billion €. The Steel consumption is more than 5 million tons per year. The most important producer in Europe is Germany, which has occupied 45% of European forging production. The technical trends of European forging industry are developing technical innovations together with their suppliers, reaching process stability by high automation level, and using the advantages of a distinctive network including the total supply chain by cooperation between national and international forging industries.

 

After making analysis on global economic and American economic firstly, he made a conclusion that better economic conditions will trigger a recovery in forgings industry activity. In NA custom forging sales, impression die forgings classified by process and ferrous metal forgings classified by material are primary. In impression die forging sales on 2009, the aerospace forgings occupied 40%, and automotive forgings occupied 31%. In open die forging sales on 2009, the proportion of construction, general industrial, special industry, aircraft & parts, and ordnance respectively are 16%, 11%, 10%, 8%, and 6%. In rolled ring sales on 2009, aerospace forgings occupied 61%.

 

The total output of China forging industry in 2009 is 7.76 million tons, while the closed die forging, automotive forging and open die forging respectively are 4.79 million tons, 3.68 million tons and 2.45 million tons. There are 370 sets of 10-160MN Hydraulic forging press, 90% of which is made in China. There are 600 sets of 3-5 tons open die forging hammers equipped with 2-3 tons forging manipulators in China. And 8 tons open die forging hammer appeared in China at the moment. Friction Screw Presses (over 400 tons) are more than 7400 sets, and forging hammers are more than 600 sets. Hot forging presses are more than 350 sets, while forging equipment over 10000 tons (including 10-6 tons hammer) capacity will reach 40 or more.

 

Reducing atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) has become a major issue in many fields in recent years in view of the serious state of global warming. Thus reducing CO₂ emissions from vehicles has therefore become a key issue, and vehicle manufactures are being called upon to improve the fuel economy of their products. A non-graphite die release agent was adopted for extrusion forming of intricately shaped CVT pulley parts. The pulley forging process developed in this project substantially mitigates the environmental impact by curbing CO₂ emissions in pulley production operations by 30% and by reducing industrial waste by 98%.

Around the world in forging industries ¨C especially in the Asian region, very few presses or hammers are automated with the help of walking beam transfer systems or robots. Due to cost, most companies still follow manual operation only. A safe and accident free working environment is the prerequisite to productive and profitable organization. Hence from raw material cutting, billet heating, forging, trimming, heat treatment, post forging and despatch, importance should be given to material flow with proper material handling system, safety interlocking, lighting etc. Teaching and training are important for a new person who works in new environment.

 

Aiming at the situation that it is difficult to meet the market quality demand using traditional manufacturing process to make car transmission reverse gears in China, we put forward the precision forging process to form reverse gears and have carried out process optimization and trial-production validations on this process. For car transmission reverse gears with bigger and smaller OD, hot forging plus calibration plus back taper and warm forging plus calibration plus back taper combined precision forging forming processes are put forward respectively, and the two combined processes are already used for series productions. Reverse gears with different specifications are produced successfully. The two combined precision forging forming processes: hot forging plus calibration plus back taper and warm forging plus calibration plus back taper, have not only solved reverse gear forming issue by forging, but also reduced forming tonnage greatly, got rid of dependence on big pressure press, and improved die life efficiently.

 

In recent years, the automobile industry has stepped up its efforts to conserve the global environment. Measures to reduce CO₂ emissions during cruising are engine efficiency improvement, reduction of transmission loss in drive mechanism, and part weight reduction. To decrease CO₂ emissions during parts manufacturing, the key is material and energy saving in production system. Through describing manufacturing method development to see the net shape technique that helps to cut CO₂ emissions and aluminum forging technologies developed to achieve our new energy-saving production line created by completely slimming down the aluminum high-mount knuckle forging manufacturing equipment and line.

 

Increasing industry demand for light weight component with higher strength and improved service life has led to critical evaluation of quality assurance during manufacturing. One of the measures used to enhance fatigue performance of a component is to intentionally induce residual compressive stresses at critical locations on the component. Effects of residual stresses on fatigue life of a forged disc spring are studied with two sets of disc springs. Disc springs with shot peening have shown substantial increase in fatigue life of component over components without shot peening.

 

The application effect with numerical simulation, high-frequency quenching and non-flash forging on car hubs¡¯ forming has proves that forging enterprises have broad material and energy saving space. As Win-win choice for enterprises, persistent technology innovation for lower carbon emission development not only creates more value for clients on cost reduction, but also brings competitive advantages and considerable profit for themselves. Furthermore, it should contribute more for human¡¯s living environment and future development.

 

The advancement of CAE for forging processes in recent years is remarkable. Especially, forging simulation by the finite element method and transferring simulation by the 3D CAD functions are highly effective for optimizing QCT of forging processes. Through effective cases, they introduced the improvement of quality of forged components, reduction of materials, improvement of die life, and reduction in tryout frequency by using CAE for forging processes.

 

Mr. Bernhard Kaminski introduced the latest development of highly flexible screw presses. Screw presses from SMS Meer (Eumuco Hasenclever Closed-Die Forging Product Division) with direct electric drive distinguish themselves from other flywheel-driven screw presses by the feature that there is a direct between the machine to be driven and the drive motor without the provision of intermediate gears or other mechanisms. Dr. A. Serdar Tuncel introduced the latest development of SMS at open die forging equipment.

In recent years numerical simulation has been used in the forming industry. The traditional time-consuming and costly trial and error method has been replaced by more and more sophisticated simulation software that can now address the whole manufacturing process. At the same time, the dramatic improvement in hardware power as well as the development of always more efficient algorithms has made it possible to simulate the most complex parts within very short computation times. The newly integrated MAES algorithm in the F.E. code FORGE makes it relatively easy to optimize lots of parameters in a large panel of processes such as closed die forging, open die forging, heat treatment and others.

 

The one of the remarkable global trends of the world is saving emission of CO2. Induction heating system is, for its principle method, doesn¡¯t exhaust CO2 gas, which gives less damage to the environment. Adding that, the Induction heating enables to realize ¡°high speeded heating¡±, ¡°saving the space for the equipment¡±, ¡°improvement of working environment¡±, ¡°the stability of heating without trained operator¡± for automated line and so on.

 

Railway infrastructure is growing around the world. High loads, tight bends, strong acceleration and (emergency) braking ¨C railway wheels have to cope with extreme levels of stress. Higher train speeds and the trend to high speed and ultra high speed passenger trains led to a shift from cast wheels to forged monobloc wheels. Two main factors determine the competitiveness of a forging and rolling line: The billet weight and the output. The billet weight depends on the quality of the furnace, the die design, the quality of the forging machines and the press forces which are available. The output depends not only on the cycle time of the individual forging aggregates and their successful integration in a forging line, it is also determined by the uptime of the line.

 

8 years after the introduction of the new Direct Drive screw press on the International market, Ficep presents now some important applications that can be realized thanks to this innovative solution. This new technology has allowed the possibility to carry out in a simpler and more rational way operations that previously required complex devices, with a considerable saving of energy and with an increased quality of the final products. Ficep has developed a revolutionary ¡°DIRECT DRIVE¡± system based on the concept of the linear motor, a motor that has been fully tested in the field of CNC machine tools, but conceived as an ¡°EXTREME HIGH TORQUE FRAMELESS MOTOR¡± especially designed to drive directly the press screw. This solution, besides being very simple from a constructive point of view, makes the motor-flywheel group extremely insensitive to the vibrations and to the strong decelerations it is subjected to for the impact effect of the die on the piece.

 

The share of material costs in the unit costs of die forging parts amounts to 30% ¨C 50 %. In order to cut material costs the mass distribution must be adapted to the final shape as closely as possible already at a very early stage. Moreover good mass distribution reduces material flow in the forging tools and consequently increases tool life.

 

Low-emission drive concepts, compact and lightweight construction for changing and more numerous customer segments and saving resources are the hot topics in the discussion what direction the car makers are heading in the future for. On the global market, where price and quality have a high priority, forging companies can comply with the international quality standards and expectations for flexibility and competitiveness by gradually substituting inefficient & orthodox manufacturing equipment by a highly versatile, innovative and economical forging process. Fully automatic forging lines, like the horizontal multi stage forging lines from Hatebur suit to these requirements of the future. The Hatebur Hotmatic series provides high productivity combined with high process capability and repeatability of the production, as well as the flexibility for future part geometries.

 

He presented a comparison of press and hammer forged connecting rods and compares the two technologies based on modern forging practices. It were shown that although hammer and press equipment can produce the same part, with proper die design, a high speed programmable hammer can exceed the production and forging quality levels commonly believed to be achievable only on mechanical presses. The die forger design and programmability benefits are having standardized production process, can be programmed to close dies on last blow of sequence (die closure), having rigid construction and repeatable process, and making consistent forgings.

 

The combination of two incremental processes, rotary forging and flowforming, is an innovative technique to manufacture wheels reducing raw material and the final weight. The preform design for the rotary forging is optimized according to the needs of the flowforming process in order to achieve the final design. On the other hand, the strong effect of both processes on the mechanical properties makes it possible to modify the thickness of the final wheel reducing the weight. The objective of the work has been the development of a simulation methodology, the process design for a wheel disk, the specifications of the experimental unit adapted to the part, the manufacture of the machine and the prototypes in order to validate the simulation model.