11th International Cold Forming Congress and 38th International Cold Forging Group Plenary Meeting provide main events at The Racecourse, Chester, UK, 11 – 16 September 2005.
Cold forming/forging experts and delegates from around the world gathered recently in near perfect weather at The Racecourse Chester, to attend the 11th ICFC (Sunday to Wednesday) and The 38th ICFG (Wednesday to Friday). ICFC’s are primarily industrially based events which take place every five years with venues alternating between Germany and the UK.
They provide an excellent opportunity for the industry to review progress in the previous five years and to identify the challenges to be faced in the next five. The 11th ICFC represented a half century of cold metalforming progress.
Twenty two speakers from eleven countries informed delegates of a range of technological and business developments they believed were likely to be influential for cold metalforming in the period 2005 – 2010.
In Session One, Anticipated Metalforming Developments 2005 – 2010, Dr. Gianni Martinelli of Forging Technologies, Switzerland gave an impressive personal description of what is required to compete effectively in the global metalforming sector. As he informed delegates, “If it is possible to compete with the rest of the world by metalforming in a high cost economy like Switzerland, we must be doing something right.” Professor Peter Groche from Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, provided his audience with an elegant presentation of future trends in cold rolling technologies for component manufacture In particular, he showed the effectiveness of bifurcated structures in the natural world and suggested how metalforming might be used to copy them.
In Session Two, Metalforming Development for Automotive Manufacturing 2005 – 2010, Roger Bayly and Kenny McKay of KPMG explained the background to the current turbulence in the global automotive sector and suggested the factors which suppliers needed to address in order to succeed and survive. Adrian Nicklin of Wagon Automotive explained what the customers of his Company expected from them and what in turn they expected from their suppliers.
Session Three, Global Issues for Competitive Metalforming, heard from Dr. Praveen Pauskar of The Timken Company, USA who showed the type of innovation which operators in high cost manufacturing environments needed to make to be profitable. He was followed by Ferdinand Kersten of Nedschroef Holdings, Netherlands who presented the case of West European Suppliers and the demands of the global automotive industry. His specific route to success was to compete only where it was cost effective to do so and to ignore areas where there was little margin for profit. Horst Sauerbrey of Lasco Umformtechnik in Germany gave an equipment manufacturers view of the cold forming of solid components using automated hydraulic presses. This included: machine characteristics, part handling and metalforming examples.
Session Four considered Equipment and Process Developments and began with a presentation from Thomas Christoffel of Hatebur, Switzerland. His talk concerned the recent progress made by the Company in equipment, tooling and process developments. This was followed by new examples of precision cold forging at Yamanaka Engineering Japan and China by Masahito Yamanaka. In particular, the presentation included the development of spline and helical gear teeth to net shape. The final paper of the day from Steven Walkinshaw of Aida Europe showed how the application of knowledge to functional press design could produce impressively increased accuracy, surface quality and performance without any discernable slide movement or wear.
Day Two began with Session Five, The Forming of Light Metals when Karl-Heinz Von Zengen of the European Aluminium Association in Belgium informed delegates of the development and trends in the use of aluminium for automotive applications. These included the forming of structural and body elements, alloy developments and energy balance for aluminium vehicles. His presentation was followed by Edwin de Vries of MSC Software who spoke about a new anisotropic yield model for aluminium alloy sheet forming processes which as he demonstrated would allow the forming of deep drawn items without incurring earing. Roger Doo of Henrob closed the session with a comprehensive description of self piercing riveting technology which his Company had developed and used in conjunction with Audi, Jaguar and others.
Session Six, Process Applications and Simulation, began with a presentation by Dr. Nikolia Biba of Quantor, Russia showing how the use of simulation methods could be used to increase the life of cold forging tools. This was followed by James Farrar of Wilde FEA, UK, who demonstrated the practical benefits of simulation in the cold forming industry using DEFORM Software. The session was concluded by Dr. Gerhard Arfmann of CPM, Germany describing a hybrid approach mixing simulation with real engineering input to produce an improved system for process and tool design.
Session Seven on Tooling Developments, began with Tony Goodridge of IonBond Switzerland/UK describing the development of PVD technology for cold forming tools. This was followed by Professor Karl Kuzman of The University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, who explained how, in his country, R & D establishments and tool makers had, with government support, formed alliances and established a national capability which served a large and increasing proportion of European metalforming businesses. The session ended with Dr Jens Groenbaek of Strecon A/S, Denmark giving a description of his Company’s recent developments in the topic of adjustable dies for bulk metalforming. Examples of production specific parts were shown to illustrate the benefits which could be obtained by use of this technology compared with conventional methods.
Session Eight, Advanced Technologies for Profitability Cold Forming, began with Steven Panke of Pearson Panke presenting a wide range of incremental cold forming processes including, swaging, spinning and roll forming. The presentation included examples of cold formed components titled, “impossible” and “really impossible.” He was followed by Joerg Treu of Schuler GmbH, Germany who showed the range of process applications which the Schuler Company had achieved in net and near net shape metalforming and the methodologies of how these had been obtained. The final presentation of the Congress was provided by Franz Hofer of GFM GmbH, Austria who explained the process of radial forging and provided some case study examples of its widespread use in automotive engineering and of the benefits adoption of the technology could bring..
Proceedings of The 11th International Cold Forming Congress 12 – 14 September 2005.
Available on CD (22 presentations from 11 countries).
Price £52.50 (including package and postage).
To obtain a copy please complete and return the form at the link below making sure that you include any Bank Transfer Charges which may be imposed.
CD of 11 ICFC Proceedings (PDF version)
CD of 11 ICFC Proceedings (MS Word version)
On Wednesday 14th September, delegates to both The 11th ICFC and 38th ICFG shared a Study Tour day to: Airbus, Getrag-Ford, Bentley Motors, Leyland Trucks, Henrob, JCB and/or BMW engine plant at Hamms Hall. Each delegate visited two plants.
On Thursday 15th, The 38th ICFG held its sub group meetings followed on Friday by The Plenary Meeting. Oral presentations were given by: Mr. Alexander Putz of The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, winner of The ICFG prize for his paper: Ultrasonic Inspection of Prestressed Cold Forging Tools –Development of a Theoretical Model and Relevance for Industry.
This was followed by invited status reports from:
“Research and development of precision forging in Japan”
Prof. Tamotsu Nakamura, Shizuoka University, Japan
“Cold forging in China: history, present and future”
Dr. Zhen Zhao, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
“State of the art and future development in cold forging”
Dr. Hans-Willi Raedt, Hirschvogel Automotive Group, Germany
“Cold Forging: Where we are now and where we might be going. A personal view”
Dr. Peter Standring, University of Nottingham, UK
Poster Presentations were also provided by:
“Analysis of force-indentation measurements of anisotropic metals”
E. Koray1, N. Topcu1, A.E. Tekkaya2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, METU, Ankara, Turkey
2Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Atilim University, Ankara, Turkey
“Investigation of laser treatment of hot forging tool”
dr inż. Andrzej Plewiński, dr inż. Stanisław Ziółkiewicz
Metal Forming Institute, Poznan, Poland
“An approach to measure formability of the material to be forged by lateral extrusion method” Kichitaro Shinozaki, Kanichi Hatsukano, Toru Shimizu and Takahiro Ohashi
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan
“Die forging of magnesium wrought alloys ZK- and AZ-series”
J. Swiostek, D. Letzig, C. Blawert, K.U. Kainer,
GKSS Research Centre, Germany
Further information about the ICFG and the 38th Plenary Meeting can be obtained from http://www.lft.uni-erlangen.de/SEITEN/ICFG/
