Driving down element turnaround time while improving quality and reducing waste is being achieved at Weir Minerals Africa’s thrilling new Replicast Plant in Isando, Gauteng.
Umar Smith, plant manager at Weir Minerals Africa’s Isando facility, highlights that the revolutionary development enables the corporate to supply more elements at a time – and more rapidly. This will help in assembly rising customer demand, while also reducing rework and wastage.
“As a part of our Project Vuka, this new plant permits us to forged multiple small components per batch rather than just separately,” says Smith. “We can even reduce our knock-out times from days to simply a couple of hours.”
The state-of-the-art amenities allow Weir Minerals Africa to cast excessive chrome elements weighing up to 250 kg. There are two phases to the new course of, he explains, which uses polystyrene to create moulds. The first section is the polystyrene moulding process, which happens after the polystyrene beads have been expanded. The second section is where the ramming, pouring and demoulding takes place.
In distinction 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 involves a vacuum bin, from which all the air is removed to compress the sand.
“The absence of resin and catalyst – in addition to having no clamping course of – ends in less scrap being produced, and subsequently 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 is less fettling of the completed product thereby lowering dimensional variation between the identical elements. เกจวัดแรงดันน้ำดิจิตอล in turn contributes to the reliability of the tools utilizing these elements. He says the foundry will also realise vital environmental benefits on account of utilizing no chemical substances in the sand.
“This new plant aligns nicely with our company sustainability goals, ensuring that our processes usually are not solely compliant but repeatedly cut back our environmental impression,” says Smith. “Our new moulding systems make positive that fewer gases are emitted during the casting process, and there are zero emissions of dangerous substances such as benzene.”
The new expertise can also be leading to less frequent disposal of silica sand, and the sand itself is extra environmentally friendly because it accommodates no resin or acid.
“A remarkable facet of creating this new plant was the reality that it was accomplished with our native skills and largely in the course of the COVID-19 lockdowns,” he says. “Despite the novelty of this technology, and the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, it was efficiently applied on time and within budget.”
The plant consists of more than 16,000 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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