StrikoWestofen designs melting furnace that handles huge pieces of cast aluminium parts at one go

Growing popularity of lighter and more fuel efficient vehicles has created new demands on cast aluminium parts and associated production processes. Melting furnaces now have to handle a mix of large flat cast parts and smaller thin-walled material. The number of aluminium die-casting structural parts in automotive manufacturing is increasing constantly and more and more individual parts are being combined to form integral aluminium parts. This resulted in a need to handle, make and process bigger combined and structural parts.

StrikoWestofen, a Norican technology, has developed several products for casting structural parts. One of them is the StrikoMelter “BigStruc”, a melting furnace that can melt complete stacks of pig iron just as well as with small, thin-walled return material. Not only can the StrikoMelter BigStruc handle return material with a size of up to 2.5 square meters, it can also remelt bulk material in the most energy-efficient way.

The furnace gets closed with a cover called a ‘hot gas baffle’, which keeps the heat in the shaft, preventing energy from escaping, while increasing the efficiency of the melting process, explains StrikoWestofen’s Peter Reuther .

The advantages of the BigStruc melting furnace created a convincing proposition for KS HUAYU AluTech, part of Rheinmetall Automotive AG. The company’s “TPM” or “Total Productive Management” philosophy means that production processes have to run with minimal operator intervention. BigStruc dramatically reduces plant downtime, frequency of spare part replacement, and scrap and energy loss.

The BigStruc, with a capacity of 9 m3 can melt large return material without cutting them into two pieces beforehand, eliminating this extra work step. Data collected on filling cycles, energy requirements, etc. can be archived and easily evaluated. Analysis of this data can then be used to further improve BigStruc’s efficiency and productivity.

“Our omnivore melts up to 3.5 tonnes of aluminium per hour, 24 hours a day. It’s always hungry, but it never gets tired,” Reuther concludes.