Driving down part turnaround time while improving high quality and decreasing 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 revolutionary development permits the company to produce more parts at a time – and more quickly. This will help in meeting growing buyer demand, whereas additionally lowering rework and wastage.
“As part of our Project Vuka, this new plant allows us to cast a quantity of small elements per batch quite than simply one by one,” says Smith. “We can also reduce our knock-out occasions from days to only a couple of hours.”
The state-of-the-art facilities allow Weir Minerals Africa to forged excessive chrome elements weighing as much as 250 kg. There are two phases to the new process, he explains, which makes use of polystyrene to create moulds. The first part is the polystyrene moulding course of, which happens after the polystyrene beads have been expanded. The second section is the place the ramming, pouring and demoulding takes place.
In contrast to the normal moulding line – where resin and catalyst are used to bind sand – the Replicast Plant makes use of silica sand of 30-35 AFS grade along with the polystyrene mould, he says. Off the record entails a vacuum bin, from which all the air is eliminated to compress the sand.
“The absence of resin and catalyst – as nicely as having no clamping process – ends in less scrap being produced, and subsequently brings operational savings,” he says. “The quality of castings is also raised, with a greater floor end and fewer defects.”
He notes that the geometrical stability of elements is improved, as there’s much less fettling of the finished product thereby decreasing dimensional variation between the same parts. This in flip contributes to the reliability of the tools utilizing these parts. He says the foundry may also realise significant environmental benefits on account of utilizing no chemical substances in the sand.
“This new plant aligns nicely with our company sustainability targets, guaranteeing that our processes usually are not only compliant however constantly scale back our environmental influence,” says Smith. “Our new moulding systems ensure that fewer gases are emitted during the casting process, and there are zero emissions of dangerous substances similar to benzene.”
The new technology can additionally be leading to much less frequent disposal of silica sand, and the sand itself is more environmentally friendly because it contains no resin or acid.
“A outstanding side of developing this new plant was the fact that it was carried out with our native skills and largely during the COVID-19 lockdowns,” he says. “Despite the novelty of this technology, and the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, it was successfully implemented on time and inside price range.”
The plant includes greater than 16,000 particular person elements, and makes use of over 1,900 m of cabling, 300 m of water piping and 55 tons of metal.
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