Foundry Case Studies

Challenge: A foundry had been utilizing a General Kinematics vibrating furnace charge feeder for a number of years. With repeated drops of heavy charge material, the trough of the unit […]

Challenge The customer was looking for a unique solution to replace their existing vibratory shear take away conveyor. Every so often the shear would not fully shear off the material correctly. By design, the shear would then index the piece forward. If this happens several times in succession, the extended piece would be leveraged onto the vibratory conveyor which deformed the trough pan overtime. In addition, the large downward force would restrict the vibratory conveyor's motion, causing damage to the supporting rocker legs and drive assembly.

Challenge A unique secondary aluminum producer, located in Kentucky, had recently purchased a more efficient rotary furnace to improve their foundry production. Optimum efficiency requires the furnace doors to be opened and closed in the shortest amount of time to maintain heating efficiency. To feed the new furnace, the current process involved multiple runs using a front end loader to weigh material and charge the furnace to capacity, leaving the doors open for an extended amount of time. The resulting loss of heat makes the process less efficient. With the loader having to travel 90 feet to the furnace, and then lifting up 48 inches to charge the furnace, the end user needed to find a better solution to charging their furnace.

Challenge The wear on conventional rotary grinding drum liners and media is very high. This is wear is due to the large number of forceful impacts caused by dropping of the material and media inside the drum during the course of processing.

Challenge A GK customer purchased a used VIBRA-MILL® Sand reclaimer sight unseen from a closed foundry in the south and wanted to use it to break down sand for pneumatic conveying. The VIBRA-MILL®, originally commissioned in 1975, was of unknown condition.

Challenge Customer needed a process in which castings could be cooled within an efficient space and time period with no transmittal of force to the environment as was being experienced from vibratory units provided from past suppliers, and without a re-design of the existing plant footprint.