Archive for year: 2021

PrimoTECS is a quality driven company. This is not only documented by passing the renewal of the IATF-Certification in March 2021, by a quality policy which is clearly communicated inside PrimoTECS to all employees as well as by excellent quality KPIs. It is also documented by continuously rising the state of the art in quality technology which is applied in PrimoTECS production.

Cold forged shafts which are used in transmission, powertrain and hybrid or electric drive applications can exhibit different types of defects on the surface of the shaft. These can be closed or open cracks, they can be long and continuous or short, interrupted or located on edges, or even still exist on machined surfaces. Common to all these cracks is that they are non- systematic quality defects, appearing at a rate of a few per ten thousand or in even lesser incidents. The reason for these cracks is the deformation of the material in a tensile stress regimen. However, the cracks only form if one of the following three conditions exists: 1) A surface fold introduced by hot rolling of the bar, but so small that it could not be detected by eddy current testing in the steel mill 2) a segregation in the steel which leads to some brittle material structure even after proper heat treatment for cold forging or 3) a bigger inclusion near the surface which reduces the ductility of the steel. Condition 2) and 3) can not be detected by economical non-destructive testing.

Consequently, 100% visual check by skilled labour is undertaken on these types of cold forgings. Neither skills nor optimum working conditions, however, can typically completely prevent that some defective parts slip through the quality check. In order to increase the quality level, PrimoTECS has decided to apply automatic surface checks. The Avigliana plant has undertaken a project in which different methods of surface testing have been analysed. The combination of Laser-Profilometer and camera has proven to be able to detect all relevant surface defects (see Fig. 1), so this technology has been chosen for the quality check of these parts starting from May 2021.

With this investment, PrimoTECS demonstrates its willingness to invest into the highest quality technology in order to become the market leader for forged components in Europe.

 

 

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Cost-saving efforts are in the genes of the automotive industry. Saving CO2 has so far been an effort on the side of the car makers, focussing on reduction of fuel consumption when operating the vehicle. The focus is now widening on saving CO2 during production of components, too.

PrimoTECS accepts the challenge concerning both reduction efforts. In the case depicted here, both demands can be fulfilled in the same development. PrimoTECS is the market leader for hot forged outer rings produced on Hatebur machines. With a Hatebur park of three AMP 70, one AMP 50 and two AMP 30, PrimoTECS is one of the larger suppliers from these highly productive forging presse. Accordingly, PrimoTECS posesses a long-term and broad knowledge of designing components for this machine type, as well as of developing the forging processes. This knowledge was now applied pro-actively to parts running in series production in order to achieve cost- and CO2-saving.

Outer rings exhibit a disc-shaped volume in the center of the part before the piercing operation, which is the last step of the hot forging operation. After piercing, this part will be scrapped and recycled into new steel. However, reducing the weight of this lost material will increase the material efficiency of the whole forging. This leads to imminent cost-reduction. Concerning the topic of CO2-emissions: The main contribution of CO2-emissions in the production of hot forged components stems from the steel making processes. So reducing material consumption for the production of a certain forging leads to the reduction of total CO2-emission for this part. By making full use of the possibilities of finite element simulation of the forging process, engineers at PrimoTECS were able to reduce the volume of the pierced material to a minimum. The increase of press force that comes with reducing forging thickness could be kept inside the possibilities of the forging press, and other quality aspects (filling, fibre flow) were not affected. The volume of lost material can be reduced by 15%. Taking the huge number of components produced yearly into account, about 100 tonnes of steel can be saved per annum. This steel will not need to be produced, transported, heated for forging and then scrapped (more transport and subsequent recycling into new steel), saving a tremendous amount of CO2-emissions. The cost saved will form the basis of future cost estimations, increasing PrimoTECS competetiveness even more.

 

About PrimoTECS
PrimoTECS is a market leader in forged components. PrimoTECS operates forging processes on horizontal hot Hatebur presses in sizes ranging from AMP 30 to AMP 70 L, as well as vertical processes in hot, warm and cold forging with press forces between 230 and 3000 tons. PrimoTECS applies further value-add by turning, drilling, induction-hardening and friction welding. In 2019, 700 people created sales of 100 Mio. €, working in two plants near Torino in Italy.