2022 SFSA Technical & Operating Conference

Schedule

Conference registration will be in the Wright Foyer, 1:00pm – 5:00pm Wednesday and 8:00am – 4:30pm Thursday and Friday.

Workshop

Wednesday Dec. 7, 2:00pm-6:00pm

Advanced Melting Technology

Aaron Teske – Consarc

Currently member steel foundries predominantly air melt steel in either EAF or induction furnaces. Some of the induction foundries use a porous plug to bubble argon or use an argon cover (SPAL/EGAL). A handful use AOD technology and even fewer have vacuum processing. The goal of this presentation is to introduce members to premium melting technology including VAR, ESR and VCAP. While some of this technology may be better suited to mills, SFSA believes that premium melting will be a critical area to increase capability of steel foundries in the future.

ICI’s Process Controls Standards (PCS) Program

Joseph LaFlamme – Vestshell

Joseph Fritz – Investment Casting Institute

The workings of the Process Control Standards Program will be reviewed at a high level. This program was developed by the ICI for use by the investment casting industry at large, and a as result, is available for use by non-members as well as members of the ICI. We will discuss the scope of the program, surveyor training, checklist functionality and certification. A mock survey will be conducted by workshop participants, demonstrating the program’s functionality as both a continuous improvement tool and a methodology for certification qualification

Automated Welding and Digital Surface Inspection

Frank Peters – Iowa State University

Automation of the production welding to rectify indications found on the casting is a difficult problem since the size and shape of the area to be filled is variable. Iowa State University has been breaking down this problem into smaller segments, some that rely on the expertise of the operator and then automation of some steps. ISU has conducted many interviews and received feedback on their proposed process. This will be an opportunity to see the current version of the proposed solution and provide any additional feedback to make this a workable automated system.

Fiber Optic Industry 4.0 Technology

Ronald O’Malley – Missouri University of Science & Technology

Advancements in optical fiber sensing technologies are providing metals manufacturing industries with new opportunities for sensing temperature, strain, and chemistry at elevated temperatures in their production process. This presentation will review several promising fiber optic sensing methods, propose new areas where these sensors might be employed, and highlight some recent advances that have been demonstrated in the application of optical fiber measurement methods for distributed monitoring of temperature, strain, and chemistry in industrial metals manufacturing processes.

Miscellaneous

Alternative parking

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