GIFA, the world’s flagship trade fair for the foundry industry, is held every four years in Düsseldorf. The event, which attracts around 50,000 trade visitors, ended on June 20th this year. EIRICH is a specialist supplier of machinery and equipment used in the preparation of clay-bonded molding sand, and it was one of the exhibitors at GIFA this year. Outstanding, reproducible sand quality, tailored solutions and superior cost efficiency were high on the priority list for visitors at the show. Following numerous indepth technical discussions, EIRICH received a large number of queries on new sand preparation equipment and modernization/modification of existing machines. EIRICH had been looking forward to this flagship event with considerable anticipation, and the show exceeded expectations.
At GIFA 2015, EIRICH placed the emphasis on technical solutions which give ferrous and nonferrous metal foundries new opportunities to make quality and cost-efficiency optimizations on new construction, retrofit and modernization projects. A recap:
Return sand cooling and preparation under vacuum – the EVACTHERM® process Depending on size, the systems have a throughput rate of 6 m³ - 300 m³ / hour. Mixing, cooling (from more than 100°C to 40°C) and bentonite activation are combined in a single machine and take 70 seconds to complete. A demonstration was performed in a lab vacuum mixer. Besides the quality of the molding material, lower consumption of bentonite and auxiliary materials and a nearly 50% reduction in dust extraction air volumes were factors which visitors found particularly significant.
Control modules for the most demanding applications – also as a third-party system retrofit
At the booth, visitors had the opportunity to find out more about control system technologies such as proactive management and control of molding sand properties, particularly in combination with the QualiMaster AT1 online sand testing unit (used to determine the compactability and shear strength control parameters), SandReport software (continuous acquisition, analysis and archiving of production data) and SandExpert (additional calculation of all model-based formulations using production plans). Teleservice (remote monitoring), Condition Monitoring (online diagnostics) and IMD (Intelligent Material Distribution) also generated considerable interest.
The fact that EIRICH has already delivered more than 1,500 sand preparation systems to large, mid-size and small foundries and has gained a wealth of experience over the years also made quite an impression. New drive subsystems with synchronous motor reduce resource consumption and further enhance the energy efficiency of the preparation systems which supply sand to the molding systems of all manufacturers.