Dr. Kathy Hayrynen speaks at the Minnesota Chapter of ASM International
On May 15 AP’s own Dr. Kathy Hayrynen will speak at the Minnesota Chapter of ASM International. Holy cow, why have you not already registered? You can check out the chapter website here.
Casting Conversion –Toro Dingo
Here is a well-documented casting conversion. The Smith Foundry-Toro Dingo Drive Wheel was a big success story with lots of attractive metrics. The case study can be accessed on the site of the Steel Founders Society, here, even though it is indeed an Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) conversion.
Some of those metrics look like this (from the case study):
Cost Savings -- a 55% reduction in production cost compared to the original assembly design based on part cost savings and reduced assembly cost.
Weight Savings -- a 15% weight reduction compared to the original design in steel.
Performance Benefits - Superior wear, durability and appearance compared to the assembly design.
Please do check out and read then entire case study. It is great work by Smith Foundry of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and great work by Toro as well.
Meeting in Mankato this week
AFS Division 14 had a meeting in Mankato, Minnesota this week at Dotson Iron Castings. They were excellent hosts, and that is a special foundry. AFS Division 14 has ambitious goals and also a solid core of members to tackle the work involved.
Bloomberg Businessweek and Slimers
For the uninitiated, a “slimer” is a metallurgist employed in extractive metallurgy, meaning they are removing metals from ores instead other pursuits like casting, forging, welding, rolling, or refining of metals. Bloomberg Businessweek has an article this week on proposed extractive activity in Minnesota that should be of interest to slimers. This blog is not the place to discuss the bulk of that article, but I was intrigued by the chart below showing the general increase in certain alloy prices. If you are an iron casting designer the takeaway is to optimize your design to minimize the need for copper and nickel. If you are paying attention to the platinum line, then you clearly did not major in metallurgical engineering.
