EUROGUSS 2020 – Here’s What You Missed
From the 14th to 16th January 2020, Ultraseal International exhibited at the 13th EUROGUSS trade fair, Europe’s largest trade fair for the die casting industry, held at the Nuremberg exhibition centre in Germany.
Focusing on innovative solutions for die casting processes, the exhibition was held alongside the 20th Die Casting Conference, organised in cooperation with BDG (Federation of the German Die Casting Industry). Both the trade fair and conference provide an opportunity for delegates from across the industry to exchange knowledge and views on the future of the die casting industry at the highest level.
Tim Butler, who heads Special Projects at Ultraseal International delivered a lecture on “Increasing Productivity and Reducing Costs through Water-Free Die Release Technology”, bringing Lubrolene® Die Release Agents and Electrostatic Spray Technology to the centre stage. Butler delved into industry trends including the growth in electromobility and structural components, discussed the benefits of water-free die release agents, and what’s in store for the future. If you didn’t manage to attend, here’s what you missed:
Ultraseal International Group is the sole European and Americas supplier of Lubrolene® die release agents and provides a unique turnkey solution for die casting customers. The Lubrolene® series of die release agents, manufactured by Aoki Science Institute Co Ltd, is a patent protected fine mineral oil based product which suppresses the Leidenfrost effect compared with water based lubricants, even at temperatures over 3000C, to form a uniform release agent coverage across even the most complex dies.
Lubrolene® WFR EC contains an Electrostatically Charged Spray. This electrostatic spray creates a wrap-around effect which is extremely useful when it comes to casting complex parts, as the electric field attracts the spray to the far side and more remote surfaces of the die. This speeds up production times, reduces the amount of lubricant need, and gives better coverage over the whole part, including awkward corners such as surfaces behind slide cores and pins.
How Does Lubrolene® Meet Today’s and Future Industry Challenges?
Increased Process Speed with Reduced Spray Time
Standard air spray application guns spray from multiple angles in order to deliver full die coverage and adhesion. This process takes time, and may lead to uneven levels of coverage, compromising on the quality – even more so for complex components. However, with the electrostatic properties of Lubrolene® the die is uniformly and consistently covered with less need to spray from various angles. This saving of just a few seconds in the die casting process can lead to significant time savings overall, directly impacting productivity, cycle times and costs.
Increasing Uptime and Reducing Costs through Extended Tool Life
The use of traditional water-based release agents gives rapid die-surface cooling, which leads to extreme temperature fluctuations, resulting in cracks on the die surface as a result of repeated compressive and tensile stresses. Cracks typically start appearing after several hundred shots
However, Lubrolene® WFR-EC uses a very small spray amount and negates the need for die cooling by lubricant. This almost eliminates the thermal stresses that dies would typically be subjected to.
With this contributing to extending service life by up to six times, cost savings can be more than €500,000 per annum per machine. Extended service life can also mean fewer tools are required, which has been proven to deliver further cost savings of up to 20%.
Reducing water and effluent waste and improving process sustainability/environmental performance
WBD lubricants often result in excess waste when it comes to ensuring all areas of the component are coated. This is because the liquid evaporates when it comes into contact with the hot steel die, leaving an amount of lubricated coating that isn’t needed.
Typically, applying a WBD with an air spray gun achieves just 4% adhesion efficiency, creating a lot of excess waste. However, Lubrolene’s® specially developed spray gun technology improves the efficient application of Lubrolene® WFR-EC and achieves >80% adhesion efficiency when compared to traditional water-based die lubricants.
Reducing downtime through low-maintenance, reliable spray equipment design
When a machine uses standard air spray application guns, they spray the component from multiple angles. In some instances, the traditional machines can be difficult to navigate and clean. To overcome this, Lubrolene® die spraying equipment features a modular design which can be easily adapted to suit any size of die casting machine, while its low-maintenance design improves reliability, offering significant benefits for the die casting industry. One example of this is that downtime is reduced because less spray is used, making spray head nozzle cleaning much easier.
Meeting future industry needs
Lubrolene® WFR-EC and specially-designed Lubrolene® spray heads can often reduce spray time for even the largest >4,000T machines to under 10 seconds. That means reduced cycle times, increased throughput and greater productivity can be achieved. Alongside this, the inherently lighter Lubrolene electrostatic spray head offers the only practical solution for ever larger structural parts in high pressure die casting machines that can range from 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes.
In order to meet today’s increasingly complex demands and challenges, Lubrolene® and Ultraseal International’s Research and Development (R&D) teams are working together to further enhance their WFR and WFR-EC sprays and the applications they’re used in, with the aim of creating the most advanced system on the market. Their latest developments include:
- Improving thickness measurement
- Enhancing low-temperature properties
To find out more about our turnkey die release agents and spray technology solutions or our best-in-class impregnation sealants and vacuum impregnation technology get in touch with one of our experts today.
