Page 40 - ITA Journal 3-2018

Technical Papers
Steel plant manufacturers: signif- icant reduction in the weight of dynamically moving components
The most recent member of the additive manufacturing club is SMS group, the specialist for metallur- gical machine and plant manufac- turing. The leading manufacturer of steel and rolling mill tech- nology has installed a new pilot plant for metal powder produc- tion at its location in Möncheng- ladbach, Germany. The company has several objectives with the powder atomisation plant. On the one hand, SMS aims not only to produce high-purity metal powder for additive manufacturing on behalf of customers but also to develop and test new materials. The company can take advan- tage in this context of decades of experience with the atomisation of iron powder and/or sintering. The extensive metallurgical know- how available within the corpo- rate group and the wide-ranging expertise in thermal process engi- neering are a good basis too. On the other hand, the plant manu- facturer would like to supply the rapidly growing market for metal materials for additive manufac- turing processes by marketing powder atomisation equipment.
Last but not least, the in-house metal powder production facili- ties are a link in the company’s additive manufacturing process chain. The plant manufacturer has already started to exploit the potential of this innovative new technology by producing additively manufactured spray- ing nozzles for swaging presses. Spraying nozzles remove scale from dies, cool the surface, apply lubricants and dry the dies. The original spraying nozzle was a solid and heavy component. Very light
and compact spraying nozzles can be produced by three-dimensional printing that are customised pre- cisely to meet the requirements of individual dies. The company reports that use of the 3D spray- ing nozzles, which can be pro- duced either from plastic or from metal in accordance with the cus- tomer’s needs, leads to a reduc- tion in cycle time as well as to an extension of tool service life in the swaging process.
SMS reveals that the results of other projects are no less promis- ing. A conformal design with inte- grated nozzles is an outstanding feature of a new roller cooling pipe for wire rolling mills, for example. Thanks to the use of alumide, a combination of aluminium and plastic powder, the structure is easier and more cost-effective to produce than conventional com- ponents. In the steel converter eld, it has been possible to reduce the size of the SIS injec- tors used for molten steel by 60 per cent, while they can be pro- duced from a single part instead of eight parts. And pipe welding machines from SMS group can also produce pipe diameters of 14 inches or less in future thanks to printed parts, because smaller but more ef cient lubricating rings for the expander tools are possible in a hybrid structure produced in a combination of additive and con- ventional manufacturing.
Special additive manufacturing show at GMTN 2019
Messe Düsseldorf is supplement- ing the metallurgical trade fairs GIFA, METEC, THERMPROCESS and NEWCAST, which are being held from 25. to 29. June 2019, by a special additive manufac- turing show. Exhibitors from all over the world will be presenting
new developments about additive processes on the GIFA site. Other participants are software compa- nies, which will be highlighting solutions from 3D visualisation and modelling to data processing, as well as metal powder suppli- ers and producers of machines, equipment and processes for addi- tive processing and subsequent machining.
(Author: Gerd Krause, Media- konzept/Düsseldorf)
GIFA, METEC, THERMPROCESS, NEWCAST 2019
Monika Kissing Michelle Pietsch
Tel: +49 (0)211-4560 543/465 Fax: +49 (0)211-4560 87543
KissingM@messe-duesseldorf. de PietschM@messe-duesseldorf. de
ITAtube Journal No3/October 2018
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