Driving down part turnaround time while improving quality and lowering waste is being achieved at Weir Minerals Africa’s exciting new Replicast Plant in Isando, Gauteng.
Umar Smith, plant manager at Weir Minerals Africa’s Isando facility, highlights that the innovative growth allows the corporate to provide more components at a time – and more shortly. This will assist in meeting growing buyer demand, whereas additionally lowering rework and wastage.
“As part of our Project Vuka, this new plant permits us to solid multiple small elements per batch quite than just separately,” says Smith. “We can also cut back our knock-out occasions from days to just a couple of hours.”
The state-of-the-art services enable Weir Minerals Africa to cast excessive chrome elements weighing up to 250 kg. There are two phases to the brand new process, he explains, which makes use of polystyrene to create moulds. The first section is the polystyrene moulding course of, which occurs after the polystyrene beads have been expanded. The second section is where the ramming, pouring and demoulding takes place.
In contrast to the traditional moulding line – where resin and catalyst are used to bind sand – the Replicast Plant makes use of silica sand of 30-35 AFS grade together with the polystyrene mould, he says. The system involves a vacuum bin, from which all of the air is eliminated to compress the sand.
“The absence of resin and catalyst – in addition to having no clamping course of – ends in less scrap being produced, and due to this fact brings operational savings,” he says. “The high quality of castings can also be raised, with a better floor finish and fewer defects.”
He notes that the geometrical stability of elements is improved, as there is less fettling of the completed product thereby lowering dimensional variation between the same parts. This in turn contributes to the reliability of the equipment using these components. He says the foundry may also realise important environmental advantages on account of using no chemicals in the sand.
“This new plant aligns well with our company sustainability targets, guaranteeing that our processes are not only compliant but repeatedly reduce our environmental influence,” says Smith. “Our new moulding systems ensure that fewer gases are emitted during the casting course of, and there are zero emissions of harmful substances such as benzene.”
The new know-how can be leading to less frequent disposal of silica sand, and the sand itself is more environmentally friendly because it accommodates no resin or acid.
“A exceptional aspect of creating this new plant was the fact that it was done with our native skills and largely through the COVID-19 lockdowns,” he says. “Despite เกจวัดแก๊ส of this expertise, and the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, it was efficiently implemented on time and within finances.”
The plant consists of more than 16,000 individual parts, and uses over 1,900 m of cabling, 300 m of water piping and fifty five tons of metal.
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