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Home arrow Archives arrow Feature Photo Galleries arrow 2009 Casting Competition

2009 Casting Competition

The casting replaces an assembly of more than 20 parts and serves as the main structural frame component for the Polaris Victory Core concept motorcycle. The design incorporates the gas tank, air inlet, air intake box, electrical routing, and seat and motor mounts. The casting design reduced weight by 30%. Additionally, the tooling investment required for the nobake casting process was significantly lower than the costs of multiple stamping, forming and bending dies, as well as welding fixtures. Structurally, the cast frame is more rigid and precise in shape and form than the fabricated steel frame and offers reduced dimensional variation.

Polaris Motorcycle Frame Casting 		The refueling manifold is integrated into a modification kit that is installed on U.S. Air Force aircraft. The manifold mounts to the airframe with four bolts, and all the fuel connections are made with quick-disconnect flexible hoses.

Best-in-Class: Refueling Manifold 		The hitch is a replacement that consolidates five different hitches into one. Each original hitch was made of multiple steel pieces that were bent and welded together. The consolidation of hitches into a single casting reduced the number of parts and allowed commonality of products for the customer, as well as the consumer.

Best-in-Class: Agriculture Hitch
The casting design features cast-to-size holes, diameters, and internal ports and passages. Some internal passages and overflow ports could not be formed through the extraction of steel cores, so the casting supplier used two expendable sand cores. Customer Matrix by Midmark selected A020 alloy for its high strength, mechanical properties and wear resistance. The high tensile and yield strengths of the material allowed the casting supplier to cast the housing with minimum wall thicknesses, keeping part weight and material costs down.

Best-in-Class: ClassicSeries CVR Dental Pump 		Casting supplier Signicast was able to produce the cam tracks and spline, a series of projections that fit into slots on a corresponding part, in near-net-shape. Signicast also provided the star shape on the end of the casting that was previously a secondary component pressed onto the original machined part. Elimination of machining, broaching of the spline, and assembly involving the secondary component significantly reduced overall costs and lead time.

Best-in-Class: Cam 		To fully understand the complex core geometry required in the part, the casting supplier produced cores using fused deposition modeling. These models helped the casting engineers spot trouble areas that would require special attention. A low pressure semi-pneumatic device was used to fill the core passageways and eliminate air pockets that could cause core breakage or failure.

Honorable Mention: Aerospace Valve
The customer for the tail fin part of a 1 MW wind generator was experiencing a 50% fall-out rate. Converting it to a permanent mold casting reduced the rate to less than 1%, saving the customer $470,000 annually.

Honorable Mention: Wind Power Tail Fin 		Other materials considered for the part were carbon fiber and thermoplastic, but they would have required extensive lead times for tooling. Using magnesium castings shaved months off development and reduced overall cost. The casting supplier had to overcome thick sections surrounded by thin areas. Some cross sectional thicknesses are as little as 0.04 in.

Honorable Mention: Target Location Device 		The casting slows the 25,000-lb. dipper door from opening and closing too fast. A full dipper load on the door is 227,000 lbs. Codesigned between the OEM P&H Mining and Spokane Steel Foundry, the cast part resulted in a 40% reduction in machining time, a 15% reduction in weight and a per unit savings of 46% ($81,178 annually).

Honorable Mention: Snubber Arm Casting
HA 2012
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