Steel is in a battle to retain market share as automotive engineers face tough decisions about how to reduce weight. Steel producers have introduced advanced steels that are lower weight and higher quality than the mild steels they replace. However, engineers are not happy with the quality control on much of the steel the receive, based on comments made on a recent Design News survey conducted by RBI Research in Waltham, MA. A few examples:
“The material that I have been getting lately is not rolled into a true rectangular profile. One side of the longer edge is often slightly curved, near the shorter edge.” The criticism refers to AISI 1018 cold-rolled steel (low-carbon, manganese-rich).
”Need a better micro structure.” Referring to 8620 steel, a hardenable chromium, molybdenum, nickel low-alloy steel often used for carburizing.
”(I need) better consistency of crystalline structure for low alloy steels.” Referring to low alloy (2.25%Cr - 1.0% Mo) steels
”Need better resistance to corrosion from H2S and organic sulfur and corrosion from naphthenic acids in crudes /bitumens.” Referring to A516 series of carbon steel and TP 316/317 types of 18-8 stainless steel.
”Need better avaialblity of cold-heading quality of 8640 alloy steel in diameters needed to produce 1-inch to 1 ½-inch fasteners.
”Better finish. Less scale.” Hot-rolled steel.
”Better varnish for magnet wire.”
”Get increased surface hardness along with better corosion resistance.” Referring to stainless steel generally.
Admittedly, some of the problems relate to poor quality from Asian suppliers, where definitions of specifications can vary widely, to be generous. One survey respondent said: “There needs to be a clear expectation with regards to rusting/corrosion with type 304 and others as it relates to Cr and Ni content. The ‘junk’ from China is usually at the minimum for Ni.”
But many comments indicated there is a significant problem in consistency from all sources, either in grain structure, or chemical composition or in forming. More than 200 engineers participated in the survey, and they were promised confidentiality. Thanks to our readers who participated. A detailed report of the composite findings will be published in the Design News Trend Watch supplement in August. I’m going to cherry pick more of the specific comments in this blog over the next few weeks. Hopefully, some suppliers are reading, and take notes on potential improvements.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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