SFSA Casteel Reporter – July 2024

Our strategic issues, identified by members and the board of directors, includes two issues that have been of constant concern for us, recruiting and retaining the best people for the industry and changing the perception of our industry from a rust belt legacy industry that is dirty, dark, and dangerous; to one that is vital, modern and essential to national and economic security.  Public policy in North America has burdened us with costs that are not borne by global competitors and limited our financial profitability.  Culturally, manufacturing is seen as an unattractive career that is not a path to a fulfilling and rewarding life.  We have an opportunity for the next few years to challenge these ideas and to touch the hearts of the young people we need to recruit if we are to become a leading industry for the high-performance complex systems of the future.  This month’s Casteel Commentary is an appeal to you to participate and support the initiatives that SFSA has begun that will directly address these opportunities.

Technical & Operating Conference

Mark your calendar – the T&O Conference will be held in Chicago December 12-14, with a member workshop on Wednesday December 11.

Automation Industry Roadmap

For US members, the ARM Institute (Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing) will tentatively be hosting a meeting on Thursday, August 29 to develop a casting and forging industry roadmap.  ARM is a Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII) funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and is part of the Manufacturing USA network – they are DOD sponsored centers to advance manufacturing in the US.  SFSA has already participated in a couple of ARM roadmap meetings held earlier this year – the primary purpose of these were for the DOD to compile their GFY25 budgets.  This meeting should be more focused on specific needs of the industry to eventually develop project calls.  If you or someone from your company would be interested in participating, please email Dave to pass along your name/email for registration.

Making Steel Castings webinar

SFSA’s Making Steel Castings webinar series with SFSA alumni George Hartay, Steve Gear and Tim Hays brings forward past concepts from Wlodawer’s book, “Directional Solidification of Steel Castings” while linking it to today’s simulation technology to provide a core understanding of the trade-offs that can be made in making steel castings.  This webinar is an excellent introduction to the directional solidification of steel castings and great background for anyone new to modeling & simulation, or who does modeling and hasn’t been exposed to this background.  All of the recordings can be viewed on the wiki webinar page.  

Members may send parts for guidance on rigging considerations, or details on challenging castings for assistance with root cause analysis.  Please contact Dave for more information.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Formaldehyde Draft Risk Evaluation Peer Review

The EPA has recently prohibited the use of methylene chloride and N-methyl pyrrolidone for many common purposes under the new Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA). Additionally, formaldehyde is currently under review within the same regulatory framework. An outright ban on these substances would deprive foundries of essential methods for producing molds and cores in numerous applications, posing a significant threat to the foundry industry and the broader American manufacturing base that relies on castings. Therefore, it is crucial to avoid considering a complete ban.

The EPA’s draft formaldehyde risk assessment suggests an exposure limit of just 11 parts per billion (ppb), significantly lower than the current OSHA permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 750 ppb. Such a stringent regulation would impose substantial costs on nearly all foundry operations. In collaboration with the American Foundry Society (AFS), the Steel Founders’ Society of America (SFSA) has endorsed a letter from the American Chemistry Council to the House committee overseeing the FY ’25 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill. This letter advises that the formaldehyde risk evaluation under the TSCA relies on a flawed draft from the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, proposing an unreasonably low workplace standard that falls below background levels.

The letter was successful as the House committee report included the following language: The committee directs that no IRIS assessment shall be used, developed, finalized, peer reviewed, or issued for chemical substances under review by program offices outside of the Office of Research and Development. Additionally, no IRIS assessment shall be used for the basis of any regulatory, permitting, or enforcement action. Further, no IRIS assessment, including but not limited to assessments for inorganic arsenic or formaldehyde, shall be finalized that has a reference dose, reference concentration, or inhalation unit risk at or below background concentration levels in air, water, soil, or sediment.

SFSA commits to keeping its members informed with updates as they become available.

Cast in Steel 2025 Competition

Make sure to save the date for the 7th Annual SFSA’s Cast in Steel Competition happening from April 9-11, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia!

This year’s competition challenges university students to use modern casting tools to creatively design and produce a functioning replica of one of George Washington’s actual swords or to design one based on his known preferences and needs.

Here are the specifications for your sword:

• Weight: Must not exceed 2 kg (4.4 lbs.).
• Length: Must not exceed 1 m (40 in) in overall length.

If your foundry is interested in partnering with a team for the competition, please contact Raymond Monroe at monroe@sfsa.org or Renee Mueller at rmueller@sfsa.org. Your support will greatly contribute to the success of the students participating in the event.

For more detailed information about the competition, click HERE.

Fall Leadership Meeting

Mark your calendars to attend the Fall Leadership Meeting on September 20-23, 2024, at the Fairmont Banff Springs in Banff, Alberta, Canada. 

This year’s business sessions will include:

• Economic and Global Update, Lauren Saidel-Baker, ITR
• From Washington to Your Workplace – Strategies for Business Leaders, Gene Marks, The Marks Group
• Building an Industrial Workforce for Young People, David Hataj, Craftsman With Character
• State of the Steel Casting Industry, Raymond Monroe, SFSA
• Industry roundtable
• SFSA market forecast
• Invited: Kelly Visconti, Deputy Director, Department of Energy Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains

Registration is now open. A reduced rate has been established for first time attendees, spouses, and SFSA Alumni. Hotel reservation cutoff is August 15^th!

SFSA Steel Casting Design & Manufacturing Engineering Video 13 is now available

Mike Gwyn completed the 13^th video of the Steel Casting Design Series and SFSA has posted them to the Steel wiki along with a shareable link for customers.

Design Video 13: Structural Geometry Overlay on Steel Castability Geometry Part I – Is Cast Steel Really Steel?  This episode is Part 1 of a 2-Part series addressing structural design of steel castings, especially the largely untapped capability of steel castings to achieve lower-than-expected mass while sustaining their long cyclic life capability. Fundamental in this entire SFSA webinar series on Steel Casting Design and Manufacturing Engineering is the principle of Castability Geometry. Castability Geometry enables any alloy among the 3 steel casting alloy sub-groups to “like” the mold cavity geometry that it flows into. That compatibility between alloy characteristics and the steel casting design shape enables much easier producibility of surface and microstructural integrity. Control of a load case with specified mechanical properties and intended cyclic life is accomplished with Structural Geometry. Logically, Structural Geometry must be compatible with and overlaid upon Castability Geometry.

“Quality Detail” is a term coined by SFSA to express the idea of casting imperfections that are not necessarily surface or solidification integrity non-conformances. This Part 1 addresses a design and durability analysis engineers question, “Is cast steel really steel as I know it in wrought forms?” The answer is “Yes,” and Part 1 demonstrates “really steel” with data and steel casting durability examples from the author’s own steel casting design and production experience.This Episode 12 includes a brief overview of the Additive and Subtractive processes directly applicable to making “Immediate Prototype Mold Cavities,” including examples of how dimensional and solidification integrity compliance can be accomplished quicker and more reliably. There is a concluding segment explaining how “Immediate Prototyping” can demonstrate capability in producing more as-cast surfaces in final steel casting net shape. More net shape as-cast surfaces and less machining can enable a steel casting producer to be more price competitive while retaining better margins.

Market News

The May SFSA Trends Report YoY steel casting bookings remains below year ago levels but is trending upwards for the first time since January. Stainless bookings continue to trend upwards and are now above year ago levels. Casting shipments for both carbon and low alloy and stainless are relatively flat and remain just below parity from year ago levels. Steel and stainless backlogs are still below year ago levels but have trended closer to parity for the last quarter. The YoY for carbon and low alloy steel is -10.6% and stainless is -9.7%.

In the next 3 months, nearly 50% of members anticipate their business bookings to remain flat and 30% anticipate an increase. For the same time frame, 85% of member respondents are forecasting a stable size workforce while the remaining 15% anticipate an expansion in their workforce.

Casteel Commentary

There are hopeful signs of a shift in culture and values that is a re-awakening to the importance and joy of manufacturing as a basic human aspiration.  It is a need not only for the products that we make but for the sense of accomplishment for ourselves and in the support of others.

We may be at a turning point to a new direction from the framework of the last couple of decades of cultural ideals and the development of young people from their earliest ages.  In reaction to and correction for the traditional mode of raising children that emphasized training in the values and skills needed to contribute to and belong in community, recent generations of children in the spirit of freedom have had little input from their elders on how and why one makes decisions about a career. While the rigidity and abuse that could arise from a traditional approach did occur, the new approach of freedom and self-determination has had its own fundamental limitations.

Children have been encouraged to determine for themselves their passions, meaning, and fulfillment.  Parents have been reluctant to offer suggestions fearing imposing their values and rules on the children who might be inhibited from finding their own path in life. 

This has resulted in young people that suffer.   They are anxious with no clear framework of values and virtues.  How are they to decide what is good or helpful?  How could they know? What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of their own life?  How can they know? They are anxious to be part of a community but they are trained to seek their own way, centered on their own wants and desires.  They want to have meaningful lives but do not know what life means.  We have a great opportunity to reach out to these good and valuable young people to provide hope, meaning and community. 

SFSA’s effort to attract students into the steel casting industry and manufacturing through our Cast in Steel competition has been an unanticipated success.  It depends not on persuading them to study castings but in giving them the challenge to make something they want to make, like a sword or knife, as a casting.  The key success factor is not finding students that want to study castings but finding students that want to make a sword.

Students who are excited and engaged in competing in Cast in Steel are the driving force.  They demonstrate to the university the value, technology and capability of our casting industry.  They show colleagues and family the joy and importance of steel castings.  They meet and are attracted to their industry partner and see the value and joy of the community in our plants that have a purpose, making meaningful castings essential for our world.

The success of Cast in Steel led the DoD to sponsor the competition for the past two years.  Last year, to reach out to younger pre-college kids, we expanded to organize the Casting Dreams competition.  This next year, DoD has challenged us to greatly expand our outreach in Cast in Steel by using the competition as the basis for a reality television show targeted to be offered on a streaming service like Amazon, Hulu, or some other outlet.

We need you, our members, to become more involved in both the Cast in Steel and Casting Dreams.  What do we need you to do?

For Cast in Steel, we will be hosting the competition in Atlanta on April 8-11, 2025 with 5 qualifying rounds and a grand finale.  This will allow us to have 6 episodes with a story structure to engage viewers.  We will need industry partners for university teams as we have had in the past.  We will be filming some of these plants to show as a part of the television program.  It will be great if you either support or better yet reach out to a local or state school that has not competed and worked with us to get their participation.  We want to grow the competition.  This will be beneficial to you. Members who have done this are able to recruit students as interns or employees and this develops a better collaboration with the school.  It also helps the university to appreciate our steel casting technology, its capability and to integrate modern modeling and manufacturing practices into their program.

This is exciting work! It will help our industry dramatically to change the perception of our capabilities.  Find the details here : https://www.sfsa.org/subject-areas/castinsteel/

Cast in Steel has been a big success and we have developed Casting Dreams to try to use the insight–make it engaging–to reach out to pre-college age kids.  Unlike Cast in Steel which may not fit for every SFSA member, Casting Dreams is open to all members and allows you to reach out in your area to improve your plant image and recruit employees. 

Jerry Thiel retiring from UNI has agreed to help organize the effort this year.  Our goal is to reach over 500 youth participants.  He will be developing and providing the resources you may need to participate.  The website is: castingdreams.org

Our idea is to get plants like yours to sponsor an event for kids of employees and from your community to make a casting.  It is relatively easy to make scratch molds. Here’s a short video on scratch molds: https://steamextremeffa.org/

The idea is to make Casting Dreams a community outreach that has a small footprint but big impact.  The kids could get the scratch mold a week or more before and submit it days before the pour.  The pour could be done mid-morning on a Saturday, followed by a tour of the plant and pizza before the kids get their casting to take home and finish.  Then there could be an evening where the castings are judged and the winners will be entered into the regional competition with the possibility to be in the national competition at AFS Cast Expo in Atlanta.

Our hope is that a successful Fall event could be followed with a winter event to extend your outreach to the high school/tech school, Boys and Girls clubs, Scout council, 4H or local home-schooling groups, etc. 

The idea is to create a local annual event that allows you to promote your plant for employment and value to the community.  For the tours and outreach, it would be useful to have photos and displays about the valuable products you make.

Jerry will be a primary support for this effort. If you have any questions, please email Jerry: thiel@uni.edu.

Please let me know your interest and give me the name of a contact person responsible for heading up your event so we can organize this effort for success!

Raymond