The most common method of bulk forming processes is closed die forging with flash. In these processes a surplus of material is used to ensure a complete filling of the cavity of the forging die. The surplus material is driven out of the die through the flash land, thus the design of the flash land has a major influence on the filling of the die. All dimensions of the flash land are typically fixed during the manufacturing process of the die and can not be changed within the forging process. By use of a moveable flash gap that can be actively changed during the forging process the material flow can be altered. This permits to improve the filling of the cavity. In this paper a moveable flash gap for a hot forging process is described and the influence of such a system on the filling of the die cavity is determined. This is done by a comparison to a conventional forging process with a fixed flash land. Furthermore, the results of experimental trials are compared to results of corresponding FEA simulations. Additionally, the influence of the initial billet temperature is investigated. Experimental trials showed that the moveable flash gap has a distinct influence on the material flow. The higher the flash ratio, the bigger is the influence of the moveable flash gap. The moveable flash gap is designed as a flash brake of a height of 2 mm. Its usage lead to differences in height of the parts up to 4.5 mm, which correspond to 16.6% of the parts height, compared to parts forged with a fixed flash land. If the forging temperature is decreased from 1200 °C to 1000 °C, the influence of the moveable flash gap is reduced. The average differences in height are about 0.5 mm (about 3%).
forging, die design, material flow, FEA, flash land, flash gap
To reduce electricity costs, companies do not necessarily have to spend a lot of money. At the IPH, researchers have developed a method that simply through smart manufacturing control reduces energy costs to a considerable extent – by making use of energy price fluctuations.
energy costs, manufacturing control, energy price
The integration of a wireless sensor network at a marine gearbox provides the opportunity to have a one-time expense of installation. The wireless sensor network consists of sensor nodes, which record characteristic measurement data, send them actively to a receiving unit and harvest energy from the environment for electrical supply. By evaluating the envelope spectrum of the measured vibration data, an artificially generated bearing damage could be identified.
sensor nodes, energy harvesting, condition monitoring, marine gearbox
Manufacturing companies of xxl-products are increasingly forced to distinguish themselves from their competitors by the production costs. However, many manufacturers don’t have the capabilities to identify and evaluate approaches to optimize their production. Reasons for this drawback are limited capacities or financial restrictions. Therefore this paper introduces a new approach to the identification and selection of optimization approaches for manufacturers of xxl-products.
flow-production, xxl-goods, manufacturing principles, prefabrication
Flash-reduced forging is a promising alternative for the forging of complex heavy-duty parts. The use of flashless preforming operations is one possible approach in achieving this. Avoiding flash in preforming by keeping dies completely closed during the forging operation is the main challenge in flashless forging, especially when the parting line of the die is located at the center of the part. In order to do this, an advanced closing mechanism that completely locks the dies mechanically without the use of any spring mechanism was developed.
closed-die forging, closing mechanism, flashless forging, forging process, preforms
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy appointed five centres to help support small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the development and adoption of Industry 4.0 know-how. The joint proposal of PZH and IPH is the one which will be put into practice first. What is the benefit for craft and SMEs?
industry 4.0, digitalization, SMEs
Automated guided vehicles (AGV) are very common in modern production environments nowadays. The planning of roadmaps for the vehicles is still a very time consuming task that includes different optimization goals (e.g. shortest path, collision avoidance, maximizing of the free space). Depending on the scenario different optimization goals have different priorities. The weighting of the goals depends on the experience and judgement of the experts. Automated approaches in form of path planning algorithms give results that are mathematically correct but aren’t applicable in reality. This paper presents an expert system that automatically generates roadmaps for AGVs. The aim is to generate road maps that are both efficient and applicable. For this purpose common path planning algorithms (Lee and A*), that are able to generate mathematical efficient road maps, are combined with expert knowledge in the form of fuzzy logic. The results of the expert system are evaluated using real layouts and are compared to manual generated road maps.
Road map, automated guided vehicles, A*, path planning
The required energy of a conveyor belt system is also influenced by the used idlers. The IPH - Institut fuer Integrierte Produktion Hannover gGmbH has modified a test rig to measure the running resistance of idlers, to improve the design of a conveyor belt system. The achieved repetition accuracy of 0.3 N shows a good functionality of the test rig.
test rig, conveyor belt idlers, running resistance
The assembly of large-scale products is usually organized in the construction-site principle. For each assembled product, the area requirement increases with assembly time. So for each product a defined area is reserved, that corresponds to the maximum expansion of the product. As the existing area is limited, the single products are competing for it. This results in an increased area requirement and a poor use of area. Therefore time-variable and competing area requirements should be considered in the facility layout planning.
layout problem, time dynamics, competing areas
In order to guarantee successful long term factory investments, factory layouts need to be flexible and versatile. Thus, a planning and design method is introduced that is based on a synergetic interaction of production process and factory space as well as the accompanying project management of the planning and construction phase. The method integrates several interdisciplinary perspectives, e. g. logistical processes, architecture and building equipment and appliances. Within numerous factory layout planning projects IPH was able to prove the effectiveness and efficiency of the introduce method.
factory planning, layout planning, green-field-planning, brown-field-planning
The lecture gives an overview on the different domains of IPH – Institut für Integrierte Produktion Hannover gGmbH. In the areas of production automation, logistics and process technology examples of research and consulting projects are exemplarily shown. In addition, an introduction in the subject Industrie 4.0 is given and the resulting trends and opportunities are shown.
research and development, industry 4.0, automation technology
In order to guarantee successful long term factory investments, factory layouts need to be flexible and versatile. Thus, a planning and design method is introduced that is based on a synergetic interaction of production process and factory space as well as the accompanying project management of the planning and construction phase. The method integrates several interdisciplinary perspectives, e. g. logistical processes, architecture and building equipment and appliances. Within numerous factory layout planning projects IPH was able to prove the effectiveness and efficiency of the introduce method.
factory planning, layout planning, green-field-planning, brown-field-planning
Content of the lecture as part of the by the IFA and IPH conducted factory planning seminar was the presentation of the procedure and the results of a factory planning project with an automotive supplier.
factory planning, conceptual layout, automotive supplier
Efficient forming of components without burr: The solution is cross wedge rolling. Hybrid billets require new investigations: Which are the optimum adjustments to be made for joint forming of cohesive bonds – for example between steel and aluminium?
cross wedge rolling, hybrid billets
In the presented article, the initial situation, which leads to the development of a small-scaled cyber physical material handling system, is presented first. Therefore, apart from the general requirements of material handling systems, the reasons for a determination of new requirements are presented as well. Since the developed system consists of multiple decentralized controlled conveyor elements, the data transmission principle inside the system will be described.
cyber physical material handling system, data transmission, decentralized controlled, conveyor
In this presentation the research project "Quality system for the evaluation of 8D report contents (QuSys)" was introduced. The objectives of the research project are the effective organization of complaint management and the internal fault management due to an automated quality evaluation of 8D reports. The evaluation allows to take well-directed measures and prevents that faulty 8D reports are sent to the customer.
claims management, reports, quality evaluation
The concept of angular difference allows simultaneous measurement of the relative and absolute rotation angle as well as the torque. The torsion of a shaft resulting from torque gets determined via the difference of two angles and converted into correlating torque. Today’s measuring devices use encoder disks or additional torque shafts. An incremental or absolute structure of measurement of the encoder disks is applied to it. Torque shafts are used frequently to extend the twist angle as a result of torsion. Current methods of measurement for rotation angle and torque are described.
torque, torsion, rotation angle
In this paper an approach to establish a flow-production in the production of xxl-goods is presented. The developed approach is based on three sequentially steps and takes the specific conditions and characteristics of the xxl-production (e.g. high customization, highly scattering process times) into account. With the developed approach a safe forecast on the economic impact of a manufacturing reorganization is made, so that investments in failing reorganization attempts can be avoided.
xxl-production, flow production, site production, reorganization
Compared to conventional demolition processes (e.g. living houses) the demolition of industrial plants, such as nuclear power plants, is more challenging for the management of logistics processes (e.g. due to spatial and legal restrictions). Therefore the demolition of a nuclear power plant can take up to ten years and incur costs by 4 billion euros. Controlling the logistics processes can reduce these costs and the required time significantly.
dismantling management, demolition
Assembling large-scale products involves frequent process interruptions induced by e.g. delayed material deliveries or missing availability of resources. Our approach for identifying alternative assembly sequences by analyzing the product structure and process dependencies allows for continuing with the assembly process in case of interruptions and therefore increases the process efficiency.
large-scale product, adaptive assembly, alternative assembly process
