Product category:
Metals processing plant and equipment
News Release from: Striko Westofen | Subject: ETAmax bulk melting furnace
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 23 July 2002
Bulk melters have laser monitoring of
charge
In today's global diecasting industry, where you produce your castings is becoming less and less important - but the way in which you melt your metal is more vital than ever.
In today's global diecasting industry, where you produce your castings is becoming less and less important - but the way in which you melt your metal is more vital than ever One company subscribing to that view is VAW Motorcast, the world's largest supplier of engine automotive castings, which recently adopted Striko-Westofen melting methods at three of its aluminium gravity diecasting plants - in Germany, Hungary and Great Britain - and for its Castech joint venture in Mexico
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 23 Jul 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Furnace linings intact after 16 years' use
Three gas-fired bulk melters at a North Shields diecasting plant - installed between 1986 and 1997 - are all still running with the original linings, thanks to an efficient maintenance service.
Crucible furnace replaces bale-out types
A melting and holding crucible furnace has replaced oil-fired bale-outs which, even though they had been converted to gas, had to be emptied and shut down at the end of every day.
The UK plant in Leeds, Yorkshire, is the latest to feel the benefit, in the shape of a tilting gas-fired bulk melter capable of holding 10,000kg and melting 4,000kg an hour.
Latest enhancements to the well-proven energy-efficient ETAmax design include hydraulic charging and laser monitoring of the charge in the shaft.
Weighing 85 tonnes and measuring 3.5m x 5m x 4m, the furnace was a big challenge in every sense for Striko UK, the company who supplied, installed and commissioned it; especially went it came to edging the whole structure down a road between two buildings with just 25mm clearance on each side.
The furnace also arrived on site ready-lined, because the full-scale reorganisation that Leeds was carrying out - including the relocation of its core-making facilities from a nearby satellite plant - meant that time and space were both in short supply.
Much of the floor area, for example, had been swallowed up by a 30m x 10m pit housing four new gravity diecasting machines.
For the last twelve months, three of the machines have been taking metal from the new furnace for diesel engine cylinder heads destined for General Motors.
Aluminium engine blocks are another Leeds speciality, and both products find their way to assembly plants in the UK and across Europe operated by the likes of Ford, Saab, Rover, Rolls Royce and Jaguar.
British diecasters with long memories may recall VAW Motorcast Leeds as West Yorkshire Foundries, which at one time was part of British Leyland.
If so, it's time for them to re-programme their memory banks yet again, because parent company VAW aluminium AG became part of Norsk Hydro in March of this year.
• Striko Westofen: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Manufacturingtalk email newsletter
• Manufacturingtalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
