INDUSTRY NEWS North America


UAB Cupola Team Wins ASM Design Competition A design team from the Univ. of Ala-


bama at Birmingham (UAB), Birmingham, Ala., recently won first place in the ASM International 2010 Undergraduate Design Competition for creating a cupola furnace. Students Stephen Williams, Caro-


lyn Norwood, Theresa O’Fallon and Creighton Tynes of the materials science department, and Alex Noble, Drew Brandenburg and Justin Sansing of the mechanical engineering department will be awarded the prize for their furnace design by ASM on Oct. 18. The team will receive $2,000 plus up to $500 travel assistance to attend the Material Science & Technology 2010 Conference & Exhi- bition. The department also will receive $500 to support future design teams. “This was the students’ ‘capstone’


senior design project, where they were charged with designing, building and testing something,” said Alan Drus- chitz, a UAB research professor in the department of materials science and engineering. “My [students] chose to build a cupola with hot blast.” The seven undergraduate seniors


produced a 12-in. (diameter) cupola with a heat exchanger, according to


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The winning cupola is 12 in. in diameter and has a melt rate of 200-220 lbs./hour.


Druschitz. The melt rate of the furnace, which will be used by the university’s art department, was 200-220 lbs./hour. “During the testing phase, the stu-


dents and I met with UAB Safety and prepared a standard operating proce- dure and developed a plan to ensure that everyone involved in the operation was properly trained,” Druschitz said.


RP Firm Clinkenbeard Adds New Vertical Milling Center Rapid prototyping (RP) special-


ist Clinkenbeard, Rockford, Ill., announced it has added a 5-axis milling machine to its existing ma- chining capabilities in response to increased business. The company, which makes metal castings and machined parts using a


Around the World


Metalcaster Camito Wins Expanded Order From Volvo Camito Technology Center, Tyringe,


Sweden, will cast about 25 stamping dies later this year for Volvo Cars, an exten- sion of an order initially placed with the metalcaster’s parent company in June. Metalcasting solutions provider and Camito parent NovaCast Technologies


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AB recently announced its subsidiary Swepart Verktyg had won the order, worth more than $400,000, for an ad- ditional die within an existing supply agreement with Volvo. The extension of the order also will include the stamp- ing of pre-series details for a new car


model. The total value of the deal now exceeds $4.7 million. Engineering on the project has be-


gun, and Camito will begin casting the stamping dies this fall. Final delivery of the complete dies is due to start in the second half of 2011.


MC MODERN CASTING / October 2010


variety of metals and plastics, now has six 5-axis vertical millers in its stable of machines. The new machine has a working envelope of 45 x 35 x 25 in. and will be used to make rapid machined castings and hogouts. The major benefit of 5-axis machin- ing is the ability to machine complex


The art department worked with the


design team during the furnace’s testing phase, and the students received as- sistance from several Birmingham-area companies, including North American Construction, Birmingham Steel Erec- tors, American Cast Iron Pipe Co., Bis- coe Refractories, ABC Coke, Brannon Electric and US Steel.


MC


shapes in a single set-up. “Minimizing the time spent on setup operations, reducing overall machine cycle times and maximizing ultimate machine cutting performance are just some of the advantages our custom- ers…will realize,” said Clinkenbeard President Ron Gustafson.


MC


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