in cupola furnaces. The major materials charged to the cupola are cast iron and steel. On average, about 50% of the charge is steel, which makes it necessary to add large amounts of silicon alloy to achieve the desired cast iron composition (~2.5% Si). To meet this level of demand, cupolas consume about 4x105 silicon/year, of which about 10% is oxidized (4x104
tons of tons of Si).
This loss represents not only a large added cost to the foundry ($40x106
/year), but also a large waste of energy.
The overall goal of this study is to demonstrate the relative advantages and disadvantages of 36% and 65% SiC so as to provide foundries with the information required to optimize
Achieving Lightweight Casting Solutions for Defense Applications (ALCS)
The ALCS program is the result of an FY10 Congressional Ap- propriation request made by members of the Illinois congressio- nal delegation on behalf of AFS. $1.6 million was approved and signed into the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) FY10 Ap- propriations Bill. A cooperative agreement was secured with Benet Labs as a response to a Broad Agency Announcement that will be the framework for conducting this program. Our agreement is for four years with a ceiling limit of $11,749,550 in government funds and $5,087,179 in cost share, making the total agreement worth $16,836,729. While this represents potential funds that can be re- leased toward projects under ALCS, it is up to AFS to secure the funding sources. Towards that end, AFS currently has $2,000,000 in FY11 as a congressional request in the Senate budget for the defense budget, although as of this update the status of the FY11 funding budget is still not determined.
This current effort resulted in $1.2 million available for FY10 new start projects and support activity under this cooperative agree- ment and the funding signed into the DoD FY10 bill. An ALCS advisory board, consisting of 22 members from the metalcasting
ALCS Project Project Title ALCS2010-01 High Strength Chill Cast 7075
the use of SiC at their facilities. The project will involve sig- nificant in-kind effort by the foundry conducting the work and the steering committee, with AFS support to fund for slag and off-gas analyses and a consultant to assist with data collection and analysis.
Status Update: The plant trial phase of this project is com- plete and analysis of slag and compositional results is being compiled into a final report. The work is being monitored by the AFS Melting Methods & Materials Cupola Committee (8F). Those wishing to participate should contact Jim Cree, Grede, at
JCree@grede.com.
AFS Advocated & Coordinated Research
industry, the DoD prime contractors and also government sector entities (Army Research Labs, Office of Naval Research. WPAFB, Benet, DLA) participated in a kick-off meeting held in December 2009. A call for white papers was issued, and 34 proposals were received by the Jan. 31 deadline. Almost $7,000,000 in funding is requested for the first year of activity. This advisory board helped down-select the top 10 and then an executive board consisting of AFS staff, and the government members chose the seven projects that are included in the first Annual Program Plan under this coop- erative agreement receiving funding for FY10. These projects are now underway, and an initial program review will be held during a session at Casting Congress 20ll allowing AFS members a chance to see the technology and process innovations that is a result of the funding support. AFS is issuing a new call for white papers for FY11, approval depending upon availability of funds. More information, submission instructions and an ALCS news related webpage can be located at
www.afsinc.org/alcs. Those wishing to receive information about how they can support this initiative should contact Thomas Prucha, AFS, at
tprucha@afsinc.org. The beneficiaries of the ALCS program will first and foremost be the warfighter, the military and our membership by promoting castings and a strong North American industrial base.
Principle Investigator Company―State
Tom Wood GS Engineering (MI)
ALCS2010-02 Novel In-Situ Process for Producing High-Performance G. Kokos & J. Brown Iron Castings Containing Dual Graphite Morphologies Caterpillar (IL)
ALCS2010-03 Advanced Aluminum MMC Brakes ALCS2010-04 Machinablility of FeMnAl Alloys ALCS2010-05 Advanced Austempered Ductile Iron
ALCS2010-06 Improving the Performance and Manufacturing of Cast Alloys Through Modeling
ALCS2010-07 Advanced Titanium Casting Solutions
Adam Loukus REL Inc. (MI)
Prof. Robert Tuttle SVSU (MI)
Prof. Alan Druschitz UAB (AL)
Richard Huff Caterpillar (IL)
Dr. Joe Santner Northern Illinois Univ. (IL) International Journal of Metalcasting/Winter 11 Co-Investigators Company―State―Role
D. Weiss―Eck (WI) Casting Partner Prof. Sanders―MTU (MI) Univ. Partner
Prof. Von Richards-MS&T (MO) Univ.
D. Weiss―Eck (WI) Casting Partner J. Pytleski―GDLS (MI) DoD Prime
Mark Donze―Fullerton Tool (MI) Industry Partner
Industrial Heat Treater
Grede (MI, WI, AL) Casting Partner DoD Prime
Prof. Beckermann―UI (IA),
Prof. Theil―UNI (IA), Prof. Nash-IIT (IL) Prof. Grandhi―Wright State (OH)
D. Hanson―JMTC US Army (IL)―DoD J. Sebastion―QuesTek (IL) Ind R&D
81
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87