. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . inDustry neWs
Aerocast Expands Engineering, Casting Capabilities, Wins New Business Aerocast Inc., Mesa, Ariz., which re-
Aerocast said in March it had
cently expanded its engineering facili- ties and purchased a sand reclaimer for its metalcasting plant, announced it has won a contract to produce two new mag- nesium parts for Hamilton Sundstrand, Hartford, Conn. Hamilton Sundstrand will use the
two castings to form pressure control housings for integrated drive genera- tors used on the engines of Boeing 737 and Airbus A320/A330 aircraft. Boeing and Airbus use these parts for new aircraft and as replacements for existing aircraft.
relocated its engineering offices to a 60%-larger facility in response to growth over the past two years. The company said the new facility includes a “quality clinic,” equipped with mea- suring devices including statistical tools and trained technical staff to evaluate process variations and any non-con- forming products, to help reduce its defect rates. “The overall effect of the quality
clinic is to ensure that Aerocast’s cus- tomers will continue to receive high quality parts, on time, while driving
down our costs, which in turn will improve margins,” said Bob Jamieson, the company’s president. Also in March, Aerocast acquired
and installed a sand reclaimer at its Nogales, Ariz., metalcasting plant. “We expect [the sand reclaimer] will reduce our sand costs by up to 70%,” Jamieson said. Aerocast’s sand casting facility
produces aluminum and magnesium castings primarily for aerospace cus- tomers, including Honeywell Aero- space, Sikorsky Aircraft and Shimadzu Precision Instruments.
METAL EPA Approves 73 Additional Copper Alloys as Antimicrobial The U.S. Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) has approved the registration of an additional 73 cop-
per alloys as antimicrobial, bringing the number of EPA-registered copper alloys to 355.
Potential uses for the alloys
include door and furniture hard- ware, bed rails, intravenous dis- pensers, faucets, sinks and work stations. Many of the applications include or are primarily composed of metal castings. The EPA registration allows public
health claims to be made regarding the efficacy of the alloys in killing certain harmful, potentially deadly bacteria. According to a press re- lease issued by the Copper Devel- opment Association, the registration was granted based on independent laboratory tests showing that, when cleaned regularly, copper, brass and bronze kill greater than 99.9% of the following bacteria within two hours of exposure: MRSA, Vancomy- cin Resistant Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterobacter aerogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and E. coli O157:H7. A clinical trial funded by the U.S.
Department of Defense has found that copper alloy surfaces decrease contamination in hospital intensive care unit rooms. Researchers are currently evaluating whether this de- crease means fewer hospital acquired infections for patients. The Copper Development Asso-
ciation is the information, education, market and technical development arm of the domestic copper, brass and bronze industries.
METAL 14 Metal Casting Design & PurChasing May/June 2011
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