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North Manchester Foundry Installation
Alumina Ceramic Wear Resistant Linings from
Abresist Solve Materials Handling Problem for North Manchester
Foundry.
Author information - This article was prepared
through joint efforts between Abresist Corp., Urbana, IN and
North Manchester Foundry, North Manchester, IN.
Materials handling plays a key role in the day-to-day
operations of every foundry. Whether moving materials into
a plant, transferring it within the plant, or shipping finished
goods out the door, materials handling is vital to the inner-workings
of foundries. The North Manchester Foundry of North Manchester,
Indiana, is no exception to this rule.
The facility manufactures and heat-treats an
average of 70 tons of rough gray iron, ductile iron, and stainless
steel castings per day. The castings are used in wide range
of industries including the automotive, agricultural, boating
and plumbing industries. The facility uses approximately 50,000
pounds of dry sand per day in their molding processes. The
sand, which plays a critical role in determining the strength
and hardness of the castings, is pneumatically unloaded from
the delivery truck at a pressure of 10-15 psi into a 4"
diameter sand transporter line. Pneumatic conveying systems
are based on fully or partially aerating the material, such
as sand, to push it through a pipeline. In North Manchester
Foundry’s case, the pipeline was originally schedule
40 pipe. Eventually, such pneumatic systems are prone to abrasive
wear, especially when moving sand, even if extra-heavy pipe
is used.
In 1988, the North Manchester Foundry was having
problems with the pneumatic system due to excessive abrasion
in two 90° elbows. Operations were interrupted on a regular
basis so the elbows could be patched and eventually completely
replaced. However, this remedy only lasted two years. Joe
Brubaker, North Manchester Foundry’s maintenance foreman
for the past 24 years, decided that a more permanent solution
needed to be found.
“We knew that changing our method of transport
(by replacing the pneumatic pipe system) was cost prohibitive,”
said Brubaker. “But the elbows were going to continue
to wear through because of the impact they sustained as the
sand changes direction.”
In 1990, Brubaker was approached by Abresist
Corporation, the U.S. Subsidiary of KALENBORN® Kalprotect,
the German developer of ABRESIST® abrasion resistant materials.
The Urbana, Indiana, company manufactures ALRESIST® high
alumina ceramic-lined products made from fine grain, alpha
aluminum oxide. The alumina linings are rated 9 on the Mohs
hardness scale, higher than any other material with the exception
of diamond which is 10.
Working with the foundry, Abresist Corporation
designed, fabricated and delivered two 4" ID x 90°
elbows, 24" radius. The elbows were lined with 1"
thick alumina cylinders installed in 10 gauge steel casings
equipped with rotating flanges. Weld-on adaptor flanges were
used to connect the oversized flanges to the schedule 40 straight
pipe.
According to Abresist sales representative,
Gary Hensley, “Abrasion is a common problem at most
foundries in the pneumatic conveying of sand. The key to longer
life in this abrasive situation was to provide a lining harder
than the silica sand, and alumina does that.”
The original ALRESIST® lined elbows were finally replaced in March of 1998 … eight years after the original installation.
“We were extremely pleased with the performance
of the ALRESIST® linings,” said Brubaker. “They
allowed the elbows to last four times longer than before,
which prevented us from shutting down operations at least
three times. Anytime you can cut downtime, it’s going
to improve your overall productivity.”
Because of the performance of the ALRESIST®
lining, it has also been installed in two other elbows in
another transporter lines. This transporter line only handles
50,000 pounds of sand per week, so it is expected to last
at least 10-12 years.
“We have confidence in the ALRESIST®
linings because they have proven themselves over a long period
of time,“ said Brubaker. “Now we know approximately
how long the elbows will last. This means I can anticipate
and execute a plant shut-down (to replace the linings) much
more easily.”
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