Driving down element turnaround time whereas improving high quality and lowering waste is being achieved at Weir Minerals Africa’s exciting new Replicast Plant in Isando, Gauteng.
Umar Smith, plant supervisor at Weir Minerals Africa’s Isando facility, highlights that the progressive development enables the corporate to produce extra elements at a time – and more quickly. This will assist in assembly rising buyer demand, while also reducing rework and wastage.
“As a half of our Project Vuka, this new plant allows us to solid multiple small components per batch quite than simply one by one,” says Smith. “We can also cut back our knock-out times from days to only a few hours.”
The state-of-the-art services enable Weir Minerals Africa to cast excessive chrome parts weighing up to 250 kg. There are เกจ์วัดแรงดัน to the new course of, he explains, which uses polystyrene to create moulds. The first phase is the polystyrene moulding process, which occurs after the polystyrene beads have been expanded. The second part is the place the ramming, pouring and demoulding takes place.
In contrast to the traditional 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 of the air is removed to compress the sand.
“The absence of resin and catalyst – as well as having no clamping process – results in less scrap being produced, and subsequently brings operational savings,” he says. “The high quality of castings can be raised, with a better surface end and fewer defects.”
He notes that the geometrical stability of parts is improved, as there’s less fettling of the completed product thereby reducing dimensional variation between the identical parts. This in turn contributes to the reliability of the gear utilizing these parts. He says the foundry may even realise significant environmental advantages because of using no chemicals within the sand.
“This new plant aligns nicely with our corporate sustainability goals, making certain that our processes aren’t only compliant however repeatedly scale back our environmental influence,” says Smith. “Our new moulding systems be positive that fewer gases are emitted in the course of the casting process, and there are zero emissions of harmful substances similar to benzene.”
The new know-how is also resulting in less frequent disposal of silica sand, and the sand itself is more environmentally pleasant because it incorporates no resin or acid.
“A outstanding aspect of creating this new plant was the truth that it was done with our local skills and largely during the COVID-19 lockdowns,” he says. “Despite the novelty of this know-how, and the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, it was successfully applied on time and inside budget.”
The plant consists of greater than 16,000 individual parts, and uses over 1,900 m of cabling, 300 m of water piping and 55 tons of metal.
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