For more information about the SVSU metalcasting pro- gram or to help, please contact Tuttle at rtuttle@svsu.edu or 989/964-4676.


University of Alabama at Birmingham


The future of materials manufacturing in Alabama will be shaped by the skilled scholars and students working in a newly dedicated center of excellence at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Engineering, according to Neal Wade, the executive in charge of economic develop- ment for the state of Alabama, on Aug. 24, 2010, when the ribbon was cut to officially open the UAB Materials Pro- cessing and Applications Development Center (MPAD), a facility where UAB will help industry design and test new materials, technologies and applications.


Home to a 6,000-square-foot composite materials labora- tory and a brand new 9,000 square-foot metals laboratory, MPAD, which operates out of the UAB Department of Ma- terials Science and Engineering, is the largest academic re- search facility of its kind in the country.


MPAD’s metals lab is still in its equipment installation phase but by the end of the year will house three new induction furnaces with up to 500 lbs. capacity, a new 600-lb. capacity electric resistance aluminum melting furnace, a new 125-lb./ minute continuous sand mixer, new heat treat furnaces and a new analytical laboratory for chemical analysis, thanks to a $1.2 million Congressional Request sponsored by the Army Research Laboratories through the Department of Defense.


The UAB AFS Student Chapter has grown to 14 members as undergraduate and graduate students have learned of the new opportunities in metals processing research. In light of growing casting and metals curriculum and research, UAB has been reinstated as an FEF Affiliated School. A seven- student UAB undergraduate team comprised of Materi- als Science and Mechanical Engineering students won the ASM International Student Design contest for their 12-in. diameter cupola with heat exchanger. This effort would not have been possible without the generous support of the Bir- mingham area foundries, steel industry and related industrial companies.


UAB metalcasting students presented and published seven papers in 2010 at AFS, AIST, SAE and TMS meetings. The topics covered by these papers included green sand alumi- num, solidification under pressure, modeling of autoclave dewaxing, lost foam, compacted graphite iron and intercriti- cally austempered steels. For more information, contact Dr. Alan P. Druschitz, FEF Key Contact and Research Profes- sor, Birmingham, Ala., (205) 975-8120 or adrus@uab.edu.


University of Northern Iowa


The Metal Casting Center at the University of Northern Iowa recently received funding from the Department of Energy for continued research efforts in environmental emissions


International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 11


and low impact sand binders. The Center of Advanced Bio- based Binders (CABB) was established in 2007 to provide the foundry industry a research resource to collaborate on emerging technologies addressing process emissions. The previous funded research activities for CABB developed two low emission binders using biourethane technology. Additionally, a collaborative project with the University of Iowa and Penn State University established a fundamental model for the prediction of binder decomposition products within the mold.


The new funding will allow further investigation into emis- sion prediction and thermal degradation analysis of resin sand binders. High temperature thermal and combined evolved gas analysis monitors the evolution chemical spe- cies as the binder breakdowns as a function of increasing temperature. Further data collection is anticipated to en- hance the predictive capabilities of the developed emission model. The anticipated application for the emission numeri- cal model provides an assessment tool for binder develop- ment and industrial reporting emissions.


Exploratory research will continue in binder technologies for low emission binders. Several naturally derived compounds adaptive to present core and mold making technologies have the potential to reduce greenhouse gases while concurrently maintaining production quality. Research is planned to ex- plore the chemical behaviors of these binder systems to ac- celerate their reaction rates to improve process productivity. Foundry trials planned within the project will demonstrate to the casting industry their potential of reducing hazardous air pollutants while minimizing or eliminating technology transfer costs. UNI currently supplies independent testing services for emission testing of foundry cores and molds.


A significant portion of the foundry industry presently utiliz- es the rapid reaction speeds of gas cured cold box technolo- gies. Effective usage of organic catalysts not only should maintain process requirements but minimize their environ- mental impact. Research work is projected to develop strat- egies and supporting technologies to efficiently distribute these gaseous compounds within the tooling.


The Metal Casting Center has recently been awarded funding by the Department of Defense to develop advanced molding technologies for titanium castings. The center will support the efforts of the Quad Cities Manufacturing Laboratory and Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing Technology Cen- ter in utilizing non-reactive molding materials to produce high quality titanium components. New titanium casting al- loys will be investigated along with new technology to allow accurate solidification analysis with the collaboration pro- vided by the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.


The university has been awarded funding by the National Industrial Sand Association (NISA) to investigate the influ- ence of phase changes on the dimensional stability of silica sand molds and cores. The project hopes to characterize the expansion and corresponding phase changes of silica sand


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