Furnace Deck
Fig. 2. Pictured at right is the engineering design for Koyama’s new iron facility. The inset images showcase various points of automation.
Transfer Ladle
encapsulate every shell machine, capturing all emissions to ensure the highest level of air quality (Fig. 1). In its aluminum casting facility, robot- ics lead the way in permanent and semi-permanent mold casting cells for automotive castings. And, in its newest iron casting facility, launched in June 2008, the process is automated from melt to tap to molten metal treatment to mold and pour, so labor is used only to monitor the process and ensure quality.
20 | MODERN CASTING July 2011
Automated Iron Casting In its new iron facility, Koyama’s goal
was to significantly increase output while also increasing the average casting size it could produce. Since the facility was built from the ground up next to existing facilities, Koyama was able to work from a blank sheet of paper. “We wanted to build the best,”
Takahiro Koyama, company president, said through an interpreter. “We wanted to streamline labor and optimize tech- nology and environmental controls.”
Te new iron plant (Fig. 2) is built
around an Ace-5 tight flask molding system from Sintokogio Ltd., Aichi, Japan (represented by Roberts Sinto Corp., Lansing, Mich., in North America). Te mold size is 1,000 x 800 x 280/280 mm, with a mold produc- tion rate of 120/hour. Te molding system uses aerated sand filling and squeezing in conjunction with servo cylinders for the mold handling lines (U.S. mold lines typically use hydraulic cylinders). With the new mold line,
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