Engineers Invent New Process to Make Foundries Greener

Engineers at the University of Birmingham, with local company, Ntec, have invented a new casting process that could reduce the energy costs of light-metal foundries. The technology, called CRIMSON, means that foundries need only heat the quantity of metal required to fill a single mould rather than whole batches that use unnecessary energy and create waste. The UK is at the forefront of light metal casting and investment casting technologies, which are vital to the global aerospace and automotive industries. The energy efficiency of the casting process has never been investigated fully so a new research project run by the University of Birmingham' School of Mechanical Engineering will identify the energy use in traditional foundry processes and compare it with the University's new process that aims to reduce costs, energy usage and waste output. Currently a typical light-metal foundry melts between 100kg to several tonnes of alloy in a range of furnace types. This liquid metal is held at about 700 degrees centigrade in a holding furnace before it is transferred to a ladle and poured into a casting mould. It can take roughly 8 hours for the liquid metal in a batch to be used up and any leftover metal is poured off to be re-used or scrapped for re-melting or refining in a secondary processing plant.