A day at the forge (by Erika Bildsten)
Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 12:30PM | Vehicle Design Summit Yesterday, we visited the 2nd largest forging company in the world! They make large steel components, mainly for automobiles, including crankshafts. 1 in 3 trucks in the world use one of their crankshafts, as do a huge number of cars.
Before leaving to see any of the factory buildings, we had to get suited up! This consisted of white coats, hard hats, face masks, and safety glasses. We then hopped into a big golf cart to visit the many large workshops in the complex.
We first visited the die shop, where they make all the dies necessary for their products. There were rows upon rows of large mills (though I can happily report none as big as LCOs). The amazing thing is that each die only lasts for a day, or a half. This means they make roughly 400 dies every day, where each is easily at least a couple of tons. In order to make each die, they CNC (Computer Numerical Controlled -- a program runs the machine) mill the part, and then finish it. Our guess was that each die lasted for so little time, because it was in near-constant contact with molten steel in high pressure, so sharp details were lost quickly. In the die shop, because the work was so automated, the workers (called "process owners") usually just watched to make sure that nothing went wrong.
I should roughly describe the forging process. The steel for the part is made molten, so that it can be pressed and formed more easily. It is then rolled, so that it is shaped to fit in the die, and to distribute the material appropriately, to minimize excess. The prepared steel is then placed in a press, and molded. Often, this happens numerous times, in different dies, each time moving closer to the final part. At the end, there is a bit of excess material squished out around the edges (called flash), which in another step is trimmed off. The piece is then cooled, and finished, which includes machining, smoothing edges, drilling holes, etc. (see following video). Finally, parts of the piece are heat hardened, by spinning them by very hot tools, and then cooling them.
Once we saw how the dies were made, we headed to the engineering center, where people worked on optimizing processes, and designing the necessary dies and steel parts. People use software to determine the exact amount and shape of steel to be used in the dies for it to fill in all of the gaps, but not have too much excess. They used a very neat tool that simulated the steel pressing, marked on the piece where the flash was, and then reversed the process, to see where the flash material was on the original piece.
After seeing the software center, we went went to the workshop where they rolled and pressed the steel. Huge machines (at least 30 feet tall) were chugging away, which 10-foot gears turning, and molten steel pieces in every direction. When we stood near the machines, we could feel the heat rolling off. All of the processes were mainly automated, with people spraying coolant, and sometimes moving a piece between machines. In this workshop, they were making crankshafts, from the heating to pressing stages, as in this picture of a model of the shop (unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures in this building).
We then went to another workshop, where they were working with even bigger pieces of steel! This huge cylindrical piece was turned and maneuvered by one robot, while a press came up and down, pressing it. Then, the press pushed in a large rod, which made a shaft hole part of the way through. There were final parts lying around, about 20 feet long, and 2-3 feet in diameter! As we left this building, they opened "the gates of hell" to the huge furnace where the steel was preheated.
The last shop was where they did the final machining on the pieces, post-forging. This included a lot more automated mill work, and then heat hardening, which was achieved by a large machine that had a heated tool to harden specific parts of the final piece. All of final products are then shipped all around the world to different car manufacturers, and then finally to a vehicle that you have driven!
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