SOLUTIONS: Design

CONCURRENT ENGINEERING: THE FUNDAMENTALS

Product design and development is the first stage in all of our projects. Grenville Castings Limited has the experience your project needs - from concept and product design, to the most effective methods of manufacturing. Our design, sales, metallurgical and process engineers work with the latest technologies to help develop your product. We work in conjunction with our customers' engineers to design products that meet or exceed our customers' expectations.

THE PROGRAM

The program starts with APQP, which is critical to establishing feasibility and to define the program. This leads to design of process flow (using MQ1 program management software). Both the part and tool design have to be designed robust for the process. The initial work therefore starts with preliminary solidification modeling - the first iteration of the product is without gating wich allows us to see the part without gating misconceptions. We then establish logical gating (avoiding and protecting customer critical areas, with input from the customer). The second iteration includes potential gating and mold blocks, using input from production to optimize moldability and casting processing. The part is further refined from the data gained and the third iteration formed. This is with full gating, full mold blocks and directional solidification, incorporating water/air cooling. This will lead us to possible design changes with customer interface.

Simultaneous mold design is based upon the solidification modeling and the production requirements (properties and to engage a repeatable process). It is important to standardize systems throughtout the company to ensure interchangeability and aim for lowest cost production of the part and the tooling to meet all the customer specs.

Solidification Modeling move mouse over image for animation
	GCL can identify areas of heat isolation which cause shrinkage or porosity. In this example, by redesigning the gating to the part, the area is captured and potential product flaws avoided.

Production: FMEA from the mold drives everything: control plans, process flow, critical characteristics (xray 100%, deimensional testing CMM, and part metal chemistry). The Low Pressure Permanent Mold process uses prime ingot, dry hearth, reverb melting, and inline rotary degassing to produce parts with zero gas prosity. The filter transfer in to the Low Pressure machine eliminates oxides. GCL have a proprietary designed PC based control system to monitor and control critical factors - water cooling, mold temperature, fill pressure and fill times (all using data developed from the solidification modeling).

The combination of up front focus on product features and castability factors leads to a superior part and true process repeatability. Our customers benefit from GCL's attention to design of both part and process.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT CAPABILITIES & SERVICES:

	Solidification Modeling
	Metal Flow Analysis
	CAD/CAM
	3D Part Modeling
	LOM/SLM
	Prototyping
	GD&T
	APQP/PPAP
	Casting Design Consultation
	Product Design Enhancement
	Castability Review (DFM)
	...and common sense.