Driving down element turnaround time whereas improving quality and lowering waste is being achieved at Weir Minerals Africa’s thrilling new Replicast Plant in Isando, Gauteng.
Umar Smith, plant manager at Weir Minerals Africa’s Isando facility, highlights that the revolutionary growth allows the company to produce extra components at a time – and more rapidly. This will assist in meeting rising customer demand, while also reducing rework and wastage.
“As part of our Project Vuka, this new plant allows us to forged a quantity of small components per batch somewhat than simply one at a time,” says Smith. “We can even cut back our knock-out times from days to just a couple of hours.”

The state-of-the-art facilities allow Weir Minerals Africa to solid excessive chrome parts weighing up to 250 kg. There are two phases to the new process, he explains, which makes use of polystyrene to create moulds. The first section is the polystyrene moulding process, which happens after the polystyrene beads have been expanded. The second phase is where the ramming, pouring and demoulding takes place.
In contrast to the normal moulding line – the place resin and catalyst are used to bind sand – the Replicast Plant makes use of silica sand of 30-35 AFS grade together with the polystyrene mould, he says. The system includes a vacuum bin, from which all of the air is eliminated to compress the sand.
“The absence of resin and catalyst – in addition to having no clamping process – ends in less scrap being produced, and therefore brings operational financial savings,” he says. “ pressure gauge of castings can also be raised, with a better floor end and fewer defects.”

He notes that the geometrical stability of parts is improved, as there is less fettling of the completed product thereby decreasing dimensional variation between the identical elements. This in flip contributes to the reliability of the gear utilizing those elements. He says the foundry may even realise vital environmental advantages as a outcome of using no chemical substances in the sand.
“This new plant aligns well with our corporate sustainability targets, ensuring that our processes are not only compliant however continuously reduce our environmental impact,” says Smith. “ pressure gauge octa be sure that fewer gases are emitted during the casting course of, and there are zero emissions of harmful substances such as benzene.”

The new technology can also be resulting in less frequent disposal of silica sand, and the sand itself is more environmentally friendly as it contains no resin or acid.
“A remarkable aspect of developing this new plant was the reality that it was done with our native expertise and largely in the course of the COVID-19 lockdowns,” he says. “Despite the novelty of this technology, and the logistical challenges created by the pandemic, it was efficiently carried out on time and inside budget.”

The plant consists of more than sixteen,000 particular person components, and uses over 1,900 m of cabling, 300 m of water piping and fifty five tons of metal.
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