SMS group received an order from China’s Jiangsu Pacific Precision Forging Company for a fully automatic closed-die forging press. The 31.5 MN eccentric press will enable Pacific Precision to forge aluminum chassis components on a larger scale. SMS group will deliver the press and the tools, which are specially designed for aluminum forging. Pacific Precision Forging, a worldwide supplier of precision gears and gear shafts, has been mainly focusing on steel forging. This investment in aluminum forging provides Pacific Precision with access to the automotive market segment for more lightweight designs. Commissioning of the press is scheduled for the second quarter of 2024.

Forged Solutions Group Inc. (FSG), a provider of complex, precision forged rings and closed-die products to aerospace and defense customers, acquired Steel Industries Inc. Headquartered in Redford, Mich., Steel Industries is a vertically integrated manufacturer of open-die forgings and seamless rolled rings for the aerospace, defense, space and industrial markets. Since 1913, Steel Industries has forged components for the most demanding end-use applications. Steel Industries offers forging, heat-treating, machining and finishing services.

France’s Obut has been producing steel balls weighing around 700 grams each for popular sport Pétanque since 1955. In an effort to improve production of boule balls at its headquarters in Saint-Bonnet-Le-Château, the company ordered a 1,300-ton forging press from Farina. The forging press replaces two lines with a press force of 600 and 800 tons respectively, which are becoming obsolete. The future line, which also includes a transfer and a furnace, will form a half shell every 2 seconds. The starting material for the boule balls, which have a diameter of just over 2.75 inches (7 cm), are steel rods cut into sections that a press first forms into discs and then into half shells. These are then welded together, machined and polished to a mirror finish.

In a typical multi-burner furnace with numerous temperature measurement points, the change in a single burner’s firing rate can alter the thermal profile inside the furnace in a nonlinear fashion.

As post-pandemic business gets back to normal, it may be time to update your furnace equipment, possibly through a retrofit. There are likely two areas of failure in an industrial furnace: the insulating refractory system or the combustion and controls system. This article includes two brief case studies: a controls and combustion system overhaul and a complete furnace retrofit. These practices give you the opportunity to update on best industry practices and maximize the return on your equipment investment.

With this issue, we continue the circle of life for FORGE magazine. For those of us who have been around since 2006, you are aware that FORGE started from Industrial Heating (IH).

Automation within forges and heat-treating facilities often consists of individually controlled processes for individual pieces of equipment, such as furnace heating or press operation cycles. 

Sheffield Forgemasters signed up as a Tier One Partner with the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), part of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland. The move will give the 200-year-old company, which was recently taken into public ownership, access to the AFRC’s research-and-development facilities focusing on emerging advanced manufacturing technologies such as residual stress, advanced furnaces and forging expertise in Industry 4.0 data analytics and modeling. 

A. Benevenuta & C. S.p.a. ordered a 2,500-ton mechanical forging press from Farina, a Schuler affiliate. The company produces hot-forged steel components for the automotive industry near Turin, Italy. The parts are used in suspension systems, transmissions, engines and brakes in passenger cars, tractors, trucks and earth-moving machinery. The press force of the Benevenuta production lines ranges from 1,200 to 2,500 metric tons.