20th International Forgemasters Meeting - IFM 2017

The biggest challenges for forgemasters are currently the general economic situation and the increasing demands arising from the environmental protection. Thus an efficient process flow with the use of process heat is increasingly indispensable for the economic continuity. One possibility is the combination of forging and quenching, the so-called quenching from forging heat. For more than ten...

Pressure Vessel components, during manufacturing, undergo several heat Treatments that aim to confer the required properties on the entire equipment, including welds and base metal. Quality Heat Treatments (QHT) typically comprise of normalizing and tempering, or hardening and tempering, as per customer requirements. Usually, these QHTs are followed by Post weld heat treatments (PWHT). The...

L&T Special steels and heavy forgings private limited is India’s one of the largest forging plant with integrated steel melting facility which started its operation in 2012.It has got all associated facilities to deliver finish forged products up to 150 MT. This paper explains the process of establishing ultra-modern agitation system in quenching tank with specialized headers and nozzles. The...

High Carbon Forged White Cast Iron Rolls are manufactured using a hot stage of as cast ingot till final forging shapes in order to avoid a brittle fracture of this material. The Forgings should be cooled for the first time to RT through a spheroidal heat treatment. During a continuous forging process carbides grow alone grain boundary and inside of grains. The special carbides are formed rod...

This article is concerned with the application of regenerative burner systems in heating plants with **batch-wise operation**. The use of regenerative burner heating systems in continuously operated plants in the steel and forging industries is well known and has been tested in practice over the years. Due to the enormous energy savings with correspondingly large power requirements, and the...

In vacuum ingot casting, molten steel stream is dropletized and degassed in the vacuum tank, since this process is one of the effective methods to obtain good internal quality and large ingots. There are cases that the large inclusions are observed in the vacuum casting ingots at the bottom part, which consist of SiO2, SiO2-MnO, and Al2O3-SiO2-MnO. As a result of the verification experiment...

Steel cleanliness is an important quality characteristic, which becomes more and more important since the invention of secondary metallurgy in the most steel mills. The question is: What are the main influencing parameters? This paper describes several influences on the macro cleanliness of big forging ingots. Some of them like the runner system refractory, the mould powder, ladle refractory...

In 2012 Buderus Edelstahl decided to modernise its steel plant in Germany. Among others there was the request to implement a new ingot casting area to improve productivity, quality and workplace safety. The Advanced Teeming System ATS a high performance teeming system showing a high level of mechanisation and automisation of the casting process. At Buderus it is specially designed for casting...

Segregation, shrinkage porosity, and coarse dendrite are main problems in heavy forgings due to the ultra-slow solidification process in heavy ingot. Researchers and engineers have put a lot of effort on improving the solidification microstructure but harvest little. If we jump out of the mind of manufacturing heavy forging by heavy ingot, the solution may be found on the continuous slab,...

The remelting behavior of the hot-work tool steel X37CrMoV5-1 / H11, was investigated with several experimental melts on a lab-scale ESR-plant. The investigated parameters comprised a variation of the slag compositions and the use of a protective nitrogen atmosphere. Variations of the slag composition included slags with different contents of CaF2, CaO and Al2O3 as well as a variation of the...

The weight of ingots from Ni-Base alloys has steadily increased over the last years. One of the drivers was the development of advanced ultra supercritical fossil power plants requiring steam temperatures well above 630°C. Ni-Base alloys proved to have promising properties for steam temperatures of 700 °C and above. Whereas smaller parts are needed for the boiler side, some turbine designs...

Todays fashion Additive Manufactruring (AM) in the case of metal production integrates the achievements of 3D modeling and well-known methods of powder metallurgy (hereinafter - PM) in so-called printing. However, the very process of powders production brings a number of quality problems for PM product, as well as both the productivity and efficiency of the technological cycle of PM/AM ...

In this work, the effects of solution annealing and aging on an ESR Ni based superalloy are reported. The starting ingot has been hot worked as a rolled ring. The ring has been cut in several chunks, these were heat treated according an experimental design including trial solution annealing and aging at different temperatures and holding times. The microstructure, mechanical properties and...

The ESR process has been established within the last decades as a mature, reliable and attractive production route for big forging ingots of more than 100 tons in weight. This material is further used for hollow or solid forgings in power generation industry. Advantages in solidification structure, mechanical properties and yield of the ingot shift the ESR process more and more in the focus of...

Nitrogen is needed for high Cr steel to improve corrosion-resistant and heat-resistant. In generally, nitrogen adjust method in ESR is addition of nitride briquette. However, in this method, nitride does not melt and might remain in an ESR ingot as inclusions. On the other hand, the addition of powder nitride isn’t suitable because yield for this method is too low. In this study, we...

Large forgings for power generation, ship shafts and plastic extrusion dies require large high quality ingots. In 2008, Ellwood Quality Steels (EQS) implemented a 2-ladle, interrupted pouring process to produce 70 Mton bottom poured ingots. Commissioning of the new 90 MN North American Forgemasters (NAF) open die press in early 2016 generated the need for much larger ingots. To produce ingots...

In recent years, the power generation industry has demanded forged parts of increasingly high quality to meet the requirements of increased operating temperatures and pressures. This has pushed metals suppliers to utilize Electro-slag Re-melt (ESR) technology to produce such large ingots. Single-phase, line frequency power supplies have traditionally been used to economically and reliably...

The use of hollow ingot technology presents may advantages in safety critical applications such as nuclear island components. Although not new technology to Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd. (SFIL), in order to implement large-scale hollow ingots in the conservative nuclear power market, the material behaviour must be proven to be equivalent to or better than material from...

Taewoong utilized continuous cast facility consists of EAF(Electric Arc Furnace), LF(Ladle Furnace), VD(Vacuum Degassing), VOD(Vacuum Oxygen Decarburization) and CC(Continuous Casting) to manufacture Ø1,000 grade large diameter round bloom. Characteristics of utilized facility were analyzed and relationship between casting process parameters and casting defects were derived. Hot forging...

It is generally accepted that hydrogen is only a contributor to failure when in its monatomic form. As a result, an important measurement in determining whether hydrogen damage is present in a material is a measure of diffusible (mobile) hydrogen. This measurement cannot currently be conducted either quickly enough or reliably enough to be used during industrial steel manufacturing....

The paper describes an analysis of the main topics of all IFM-Conferences from the 1st Meeting in London 1954 to Graz 2017. The result of the analysis of 1152 papers is presented. The focus of these main topics will be analyzed in more detail. This analysis will highlight a trend where it is necessary to place the focus of research and development in future, namely on the...

In the forging sector, during the open die forging process, dimensional checks are necessary to guarantee that the final component is extracted from the forged envelope. Usually, the forged envelope needs to be enough to accommodate surface features typically associated with forging, whilst not being overly generous, as this decreases yield whilst increasing cost. Typically, forgings are...

A　forging pass schedule affects a closing behavior of internal void in ingots. To evaluate a void consolidation behavior, the parameter Q-value, which is calculated from the hydrostatic stress and the equivalent strain, is reasonable. The recent progress of forging simulation technology makes Q-value calculation easier. A forging pass schedule has been decided by forging ratio. It only...

It is important to deliver integrated forgings for elimination of in-service-inspection and improvement of quality of large forgings. Integrated forgings could be manufactured by integration of head with various nozzles by removing weld seams which is located between two parts. This manufacturing technology should be adequately designed to ensure accurate final dimension, internal material...

A new type of stroke-limited forging drive system was developed by GFM for its radial forging machines. As opposed to eccentric shaft machines this new drive creates two strokes per shaft revolution. Hence the stroke rates are doubled and allow for distinctive higher throughput and tighter tolerances. A prototype with eight synchronously working tools was built in house for proving the concept...

Prior to further processing of semi-finished steel and special alloy products, it must be ensured that the surface of the work pieces is free from scale and flaws. In addition to that, these products also need to be cut and the cut surface needs to be free from heavy burr and surface hardening. For both applications, even for increasingly large product dimensions and regardless if the...

Operation of four-die forging devices (FDFD) under various operational conditions and on various hydraulic presses, which differ in their design concepts and degree of automation, showed that in every application case an individual approach should be used to select optimized design concept and forging technology depending upon actual production objectives. With a view of above, introduced in...

Validating new materials and heat treatments for large forgings is often a long and iterative process, due to uncertainty of through thickness variations of microstructure and mechanical properties. Finite element modelling can provide insight into the variables that control this variation, however material characterisations remain the province of small scale experimental simulations, and/or...

Monoblock LP (Low Pressure) rotor shaft becomes larger with increasing the capacity and the efficiency of nuclear power plants. In addition, the size of ingot is required over 600 ton. With increasing the size of ingot, the high internal quality is very important to minimize the segregation of chemical compositions, non-metallic inclusions, micro porosities and so on. Therefore, to meet these...

Osaka Steel Works(OSW) manufactures the high-chromium steel products,e.g. pipe used in power plant, which are forged in open-die 3,000Ton vertical press. In OSW, forging temperature must be applied to 1250℃ or higher for being loadable in press and deformable for high-chromium steel. NDT were carried out in shipping inspection, although, in some case the defects were found in the products. So...

Presented in this paper is a comparative analysis performed by means of technology simulation based on FEM method using DEFORM 3D tool. The following processes were analyzed: - forging on a hydraulic press between two dies according to conventional technology; - forging on a four-die radial forging machine (RFM); - forging on a forging press in a four-die forging device (FDFD)...

For many years Saarschmiede has focused on the development of large remelted Ni-based alloy forgings typically used for research and development projects in the field of the power generation industry and for the nuclear industry too. Across these industrial sectors, there is a drive towards larger forgings with consistent mechanical properties, low levels of chemical segregation, more complex...

Anenergy efficient methodcalled Forging Solidifying Metal (FSM) in two phase region, which applied for manufacturing special steel was proposed based on semi-solid forming technology (SSF).To verify its feasibility, the effects of deformation temperature and deformation methodson the microstructure of H13 were investigated experimentally.The bulky dendrites structure and shrinkage cavities can...

Four Die Forging Device (4DFD) is a known equipment to improve the productivity at the forging shop when compared with conventional forging process. Despite the improvement of productivity it is supposed that the quality should be at least similar. In fact, previous finite element simulation showed the forging process using 4DFD produces less effective strain in the forged bar due to less...

Upsetting is a basic operation of greatest importance, which is commonly used in heavy forging process. Slowness in research on upsetting impeded the development of technologies for heavy forgings making. Upsetting deformation is determined by the billet’s internal velocity fields (or displacement fields), therefore, the key to the research on the upsetting deformation is to get its true...

The hot ring rolling process with as-forged ring-shaped billets is designed conventionally for forming the accurate size and configuration of all kinds of ring components. However, when the ring-shaped billet is prepared by casting, the hot ring rolling process have be designed not only to form the accurate size and shape of ring parts but also to transform as-cast microstructures into the...

a marine crankshaft is the key component for large ships’ power transmission. One of the critical techniques for the marine crankshaft manufacturing is the forging of its crankthrows. Existing forging techniques for marine crankthrows have limitations such as low material utilization, complex operations with multiple heatings, discontinuous material flowlines and cumbersome removal from dies....

The trend of Industry 4.0 shows itself as the collaboration of multidisciplinary technologies to increase efficiency and effectiveness. The cooperative use of measuring, big-data handling, modelling and controlling technologies in a production plant is usually not trivial and requires specific approaches and adaptations. This paper presents a conceptual basis concerning the comprehensive...

Open-die forging is an incremental bulk metal forming process, which is mainly used for the production of long and straight workpieces with simple geometries. The production of complex geometries usually requires additional manufacturing steps or can only be realised by a high amount of machining. A new and innovative manufacturing approach is based on the idea to realise the production of...

Quality control of large forgings is a manufacturing process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. On one hand, this paper briefly describes the research status of large forgings with the common flaws and their solutions, such as flaw segregation, inclusions & harmful elements, shrinkage cavity & porosity, bubble, discontinuities(crack), over-heating due...

Intelligent Manufacturing (IM) technology belongs to the advanced & the new production technologies. Recent years, China government published several policies to support the discrete production type industry including open die forging industry to develop IM. However, there is few of the open die forging plants responding actively. Comparison with the volume production type industry, the open...