09:00 NOCARBforging 2050 – steps towards a carbon neutral and sustainable forging industry09:00 - 09:30Hans-Willi Raedt - prosimalys GmbH

The Kyoto protocol from 1997 and the Paris Climate Agreement dated 2012 are coming into life. With the European Green Deal communicated in 2019, an action plan has been published which will set the political, societal and economic boundary conditions towards an economy with zero net emissions of green house gases, mainly CO₂. The transition of these goals into industrial practice can be viewed in statements of e.g. board members of car makers, indicating that besides the price of a component, the CO₂e-emissions will become relevant for sourcing decisions. Financing institution are changing their policy towards favouring companies that support sustainability. Even though it can be expected that this will take a while until it becomes daily routine, it is high time to start actions to be able to calculate the CO₂e-emissions of one’s products as well as to start the process to reduce these emissions.

As this is a challenge which many companies are facing equally, it makes sense to unite forces and cooperate on the level of the industry association. Consequently, German Forging Association IMU has started the project NOCARBforging 2050. The project is made up of two parts.

Part 1 is multilaterally financed by more than 50 participating companies. In this phase a tool for calculating CO₂e-emissions (CO₂ and CO₂-equivalent warming potential of other green house gases) for forged products following ISO 14067 has been created. This was achieved by contributions of all stakeholders from the full process chain of forged products: Steel and aluminium makers, forging companies, heat treatment suppliers as well as companies supplying equipment for billet making, presses, furnaces and surface treatment. The Forging Footprint Reduction Tool FRED has been presented in July 2021 and development has continued since.

Part 2 of NOCARBforging2050 is intended to collect ideas for CO₂-reduction and to start subsequent projects. Here, industry from the above mentioned spectrum and academic partners will join forces, create ideas for CO₂e reduction for a concrete selection of forgings and will generate ideas for research projects that can expect federal funding, too. This part has been initiated in November 2021 with a workshop EMMA: “Emissionsfreie Massivumformung” (emission free forging).

This conFAIR contribution will present results from both parts of the NOCARBforging 2050 project, including numerous approaches how to reduce CO₂e in the production of forged products.

09:30 A review of the wear mechanisms of the hot forging tools09:30 - 10:00Zbigniew Gronostajski - Wroclaw Uniwersity of Science and Technology

The research done so far has shown that the main mechanisms responsible for the degradation of the tools in warm and hot forging processes are: abrasive wear, thermomechanical fatigue, plastic deformations, fatigue cracking, adhesive wear and oxidation. According to the presented research the commonly accepted view is that abrasive wear is the dominant mechanism in the degradation of the dies in hot forging.

Most of the reported research on wear deals with abrasive wear, whereas studies have clearly shown that in forging processes thermomechanical fatigue, very quickly resulting in fine cracks, is the most adverse factor. The further development of the cracks depends on the process parameters, the interaction between the die and the forging, the rate of material flow and in most cases results in a secondary network of cracks extending over the whole contact surface.

There are a lot of parameters including shape of die, hardness, contact time, sliding distance, material die, billet temperature, lubrication etc. which intensify or limit the degradation mechanisms; however, in authors’ opinion the cooling by lubrication and temperature are the most crucial. The schemas of degradation mechanisms of the die are proposed for different temperatures and lubrication.

10:00 Lubrication10:00 - 10:30More information will follow soon.

12:00 Lightweight efforts on heavy duty forging applications 12:00 - 12:30Gürbüz Güzey - Parsan

Lightweight design has been a major topic in the mobility sector for a long time. This applies to forged components, too, which can be found in the powertrain, in the chassis and in other highly loaded application areas. However, heavy duty applications seem to have had a lower motivation in the past to implement lightweight solutions than the passenger car sector. This might be changing in future, due to two reasons. On the one hand, the aim for lower fuel consumption (which might by hydrogen or electric energy, too) demands a lower vehicle weight, which is especially important for high mileage applications like truck. On the other hand, there is a demand for lowering CO₂-emissions during production. If a lighter component can fulfil the demands of the application, minimized material input, which leads to CO₂-savings, may be achieved, depending on manufacturing technology.

Hollow shafts are a good example for efficient lightweight design. Deformation and stresses due to torque and bending increase only minimally when the shaft becomes hollow. Depending on available assembly space, a slight increase of the outer diameter can compensate for the hollow center. These relationships can be shown with some elementary calculations.

For hollow shafts but also for other components like I-beams for truck axles, improved steels with higher yield and tensile strength can be used to increase the fatigue limit. When using higher strength steels, it becomes increasingly important to closely control the inclusion status of the steel as well as the surface quality of the component. For higher demands in component fatigue or lightweight needs, processes to increase the compressive residual stresses on the surface can be used. This can be shot blasting (usually applied for cleaning, but already very useful to induce compressive stresses), shot peening or even heat treatment operations like induction hardening or nitriding.

When developing lightweight components, the design of the part and the choice of manufacturing processes must be strongly interlinked. Leading forging companies are able to execute the component engineering including the validation in-house or with partners, so that an optimum solution can be found with minimum communication interfaces.

12:30 High Mn-Al steel for production of forged components featured by high strength and ductility12:30 - 13:00Carlo Mapelli – Politecnico di Milano

High Mn-Al steels are a significant opportunity for the production of high resistant components in the light-weight perspective. Actually, the Al addition decreases the density of steel but if compared to other high strength steels these new grades point out also a high toughness and ductility at room temperature increasing the safety for the users. The combination of mechanical properties of this steel grades makes them resemble the properties of more expensive alloys i.e. Titanium alloys. The final microstructure is dual phase (ferrite-austenite) and is influenced significantly by plastic deformation and by the imposed thermal cycle that rule the precipitation of strengthening carbides and intermetallic phases. A large possibility to modulate the properties exists in order to fit the requirements of designers and users.

16:00 Introducing data analytics in hot forging 16:00 - 16:30Javier Arribas & Jon Jubin - Alcorta Forging Group

Hot forging is in continuous developing, passing in a few years from having manual processes to fully automatic forging lines. Simulation has also become essential between the forging companies since last decade. And now is time to go ahead with the next challenge: INTRODUCTION OF DATA ANALYTICS IN HOT FORGING.

Benefits of a fully sensorized forging process will be studied, trying to understand, analyze, predict and correct all the process deviations. Every captured data is helpful to reduce the manufacturing variability and useful for productivity and quality improvements.

Data analytics, necessary step to remain forging companies competitiveness in a global market, always offering the maximum guarantee of quality to their customers.

16:30 Industrial 4.0 digitalization in 5G era16:30 - 17:00Tiago Rodrigues - Wireless Broadband Alliance

5G and Wi-Fi 6/6E advanced capabilities are opening unparallel opportunities for the industrial sector to increase overall productivity and manufacturing quality, to reduce the cost of goods and to improve enterprise access security.

The first Wi-Fi 6 & 6E trial for the Industrial 4.0 and Internet of Things (IIoT) took place in the UK, as Mettis Aerospace Ltd. explores advanced use cases involving augmented reality (AR), multi-stream live video monitoring, real-time energy monitoring and ultra-reliable, low-latency sensors on critical systems to augment the 5G ecosystem.

Learn how Mettis, a producer of precision-forged, machined components for companies like Airbus, Boeing and Rolls-Royce, has embraced the Industrial 4.0 Digital Transformation to improve productivity in a challenging manufacturing environment, in partnership with companies including Cisco, Broadcom, Intel and BT.

Gain insight into the benefits of Wi-Fi 6/6E and 5G convergence for complex IoT environments that have multiple access technologies, especially those that traditionally have presented challenges for deploying wireless technologies.

17:00 Measuring hot parts – a condition evaluation17:00 - 17:30Michael Marré - Fachhochschule Südwestfalen

Quality properties of forged parts are of paramount importance in manufacturing. Already at part creation, quality must be closely controlled. A massive reduction of scrap rates is achieved only when part and process properties are quickly determined and necessary counter measures subsequently initiated. As a result of our research activities, we invented equipment and methods to measure the dimensions of hot parts forged moments before, including a forecast of the part’s measurement once fully cooled down.

The presentation will guide you through the fundamentals of hot measurement by introducing you to the set-up of a hot measurement device. Examples of measurement tasks and the quality of the results will be provided in connection with a business scenario for the forging industry.