Product category:
Special Purpose Subcontract Machining Services
News Release from: DavyMarkham | Subject: Heavy duty machining
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 July 2006
600 tonne castings poured and machined
in UK
Two castings, each poured from almost 600 tonnes of liquid steel and eventually machined to precision tolerances of +/-0.1mm were machined in the UK for German press builder.
Two castings, each poured from almost 600 tonnes of liquid steel and eventually machined to precision tolerances of +/-0.1mm were machined in the UK for German press builder Roads in Sheffield were closed and nighttime traffic diverted on two occasions recently, as the western world's largest steel castings, each weighing around 350 tonnes or the equivalent of 45 London Routemaster buses, were hauled by 72-wheel transporters from Sheffield Forgemasters across town to the DavyMarkham engineering works in Prince of Wales Road
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 10 Jul 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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The castings, each poured from almost 600 tonnes of liquid steel and eventually machined to precision tolerances of +/-0.1mm, are solid testimony to the world class metallurgy, casting, machining and logistical skills of British industry generally and two long-standing Sheffield companies in particular.
The castings themselves are destined for the construction of yet another world leader, the largest ever hydraulic screw press, being built by SMS Eumuco of Leverkusen, Germany for an Austrian company Boehler Schmiedetechnik (Boehler Forging technology).
The SPKA 22400N clutch-operated screw press, with a blow force of 35,500 tonnes and a gross energy of 10,000kj, will enable Boehler to substantially increase its production capacity, mainly forgings for the aircraft industry, including titanium turbine disks for engines that will power the new Airbus A380.
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To serve a Niagara hydro-electric project, DavyMarkham manufactured a cutter head support and a final drive housing for what is claimed to be world's largest hard rock TBM (tunnel boring machine).
The order for the castings was secured by Sheffield Forgemasters, beating off stiff competition from the Far East, and the complex machining was subcontracted to DavyMarkham, employing its impressive CNC milling and boring resources.
It underlines the strong commercial partnership between the Sheffield companies, with SFM one of the few foundries in the world capable of producing these giant castings and DavyMarkham boasting one of the largest manufacturing capabilities in Europe.
Boehler's Special Forgings Division produces highly stressed structural aeronautical components made from titanium, nickel-based alloys and special steels, for aircraft and jet engine manufacturers like Boeing, Airbus, General Electric and Rolls Royce.
It recently agreed the investment in a second screw press for its Kapfenberg plant, to produce technically-demanding hot forged products in limited quantities.
SMS Eumuco, a leading manufacturer of machinery for the forming and finishing of steel and non-ferrous metals, was commissioned to produce the press, which will be 17m high, have a screw diameter of 1320mm and weigh more than 5,000 tonnes.
The size and complexity of the main table, which supports the components to be forged, and the traverse, which transmits the forging load to the components, are such that only steel castings were viable.
The table, which measures 7.5m long x 4m wide x 3m high, and the traverse, which is slightly higher at 3.25m, were each cast by SFM from almost 600 tonnes of liquid steel, with six melts poured into a giant mould in a carefully regulated sequence.
After cooling over several days, the castings were heat treated to enhance metallurgical structure and surface cleaned, before being transported overnight to DavyMarkham, for final machining.
SFM employed a specially-designed lifting beam and two overhead cranes to manoeuvre each massive casting onto the 72-wheeled transporter and DavyMarkham used a similar arrangement to unload the pieces and load them onto the works' giant gantry milling machine and horizontal borers.
Here, each casting was initially rough machined, then internally and externally verified using ultrasonic testing and magnetic particle inspection, before finish machining for a smooth surface and to achieve strict mechanical tolerances.
Like the casting process, the machining itself represented a giant undertaking, calling upon all the engineering skills and machining resources of DavyMarkham.
Its largest Waldrich Coburg gantry milling machine was programmed using established CNC methodology, to enable circular interpretation-mode milling of large bore diameters.
These tapered bores ranged in diameter from 1300mm to 3300mm, with a required accuracy of +/-0.1mm and a geometric tolerance of 0.15mm between bores, which were up to 4m apart; only a machine of this sophistication was capable of meeting such tight tolerances.
To machine these large internal diameters, DavyMarkham actually designed and manufactured two large custom boring heads, one for the gantry miller and one for a horizontal borer.
Shot peening, which uses small, spherical media to create a uniform layer of compressive stress across the metal surface, was additionally employed at certain critical radii, to enhance fatigue limits of the material and prevent crack initiation.
The finish machined traverse casting finally weighed just over 325 tonnes, including a series of 2500mm diameter, 3 tonne alloy steel rings also produced by DavyMarkham, while the machined table tipped the scales at 300 tonnes.
Both items have now been despatched and the press is due to be assembled by SMS Eumuco in September this year, with production at Boehler's Kapfenberg plant scheduled to start in April 2007.
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