Chinese casting suppliers for automotive and construction machinery producers continue their investments in fully automated tight flask green sand moulding lines, assuring a high repeatability of casting quality and decrease in manpower.
Guangdong FUWA Engineering Machinery Co., Ltd. is the largest manufacturer of suspension and brake system for trucks, bus and other on-road vehicles in China, producing annually approx. 200.000 tons of castings on 4 (four) automatic moulding plants SUZHU. At automatic core machines, supplied by SUZHU, are produced all cores.
Recently the next, SUZHU moulding plant No. 5, has been ordered and is produced at SUZHU.
The leading Chinese Foundry machinery producer Suzhou Suzhu Foundry Machinery Manufacture Co., Ltd. supplies annually 10 (ten) custom-made fully automated green sand moulding plants plus integrated automation solutions for core production and core handling, automatic pouring and automatic casting fettling lines.
Since 2013 a large moulding plant with unique solution of pouring process of large moulds by automatic bottom pouring with 10 tons ladles is in operation at Guangdong FUWA Engineering Machinery Co., Ltd. :
Automatic SUZHU moulding plant
Flask inner size: 2500 x 900 x 400/350 mm
productivity: maximum 42 complete moulds per hour reached
products: axle housings, brake drums, hubs and other automotive parts
exothermic feeders set to cope pattern
Compaction of cope mould may be set softer than compaction of drag mould.
Cope mould for double axle housing with mould-in exothermic ricers.
Inspection of core setting, executed by automatic core setter.
For large casting department the cores are produced at SUZHU core machine Z84160, 160 litre Cold-Box-Amin. The cores are set automatic by SUZHU core setter into moulds.
Pouring is executed by SUZHU Pouring crane with
- automatic bottom pouring from 10-tonn ladles
- automatic positioning over moulds in two pouring lines,
- automatic pouring process (including stopper rod opening)
- data connection with moulding plant.
By overhead crane, the bottom-pour ladle is set into the movable pouring crane. The pouring crane clamps the stopper rod of ladle and moves the stopper hydraulically accordingly to the controlled pouring process, opening or closing the pouring spot on bottom of the ladle. The ladle supports on weight cells; the remaining metal weight in the ladle is calculated.
The pouring crane is executed with PLC control and network connection to the moulding plant and gets transferred from moulding plant information data for current and next to be poured mould:
- the location of sprue cup
- pouring weight (target)
- pouring temperature (target)
Automatic positioning
The pouring crane is movable along the moulds in one or two pouring lines and locates its position exactly over the moulds.
Automatic pouring process
The stopper rod of the pouring ladle is automatically opened after positioning of the ladle over the next poured mould.
Cameras control the complete pouring process, by image processing analysing of the level of metal in the pouring sprue.
Infrared measurement controls the pouring temperature.
Data transfer from pouring crane
The process control system transfers pouring data information to the foundries data network or to the moulding plant about:
- ladle number
- pouring weight (really)
- pouring temperature (really)
- weight of remaining metal in ladle.
Pouring by SUZHU Pouring crane with automatic bottom pouring from 10-tonn ladles, with automatic positioning over moulds in two pouring lines, with automatic pouring process (including stopper rod opening) and data connection with moulding plant.
Casting fettling by automatic SUZHU fettling line with shot blast, grinding and casting inspection.
For further information about SUZHU products contact MGM Muschna Giesserei-Maschinen, Germany, at www.mgm-foundry.de . SUZHU and MGM are looking forward to meeting you May 17th – 20th at Metal China 2016 exhibition, Hall W3, booth 13.