Thought that new ceramic foam filter was just a gimmick until our scrap rate dropped

Our foreman brought in a box of these fancy looking filters for the aluminum pour about three months ago. I figured it was just another thing to slow us down. We put one in the runner for a big order of gear housings, and the metal flow looked smoother. When the parts came out of the shakeout, the X-ray showed way less inclusions than usual. Our scrap on that batch went from like 8% down to under 2%. Has anyone else seen results this good with them, or did we just get lucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

kais673d ago

Yeah, that tracks with what we saw. The key is making sure the filter is fully preheated before the metal hits it. If it's cold, it can chill the stream and cause other problems. We also had to adjust our pouring temp slightly, just a small bump, to keep the flow right. It's not a magic fix, but when you get it dialed in, the results are real. Our quality guy loves the cleaner X-rays.

benk263d ago

Preheating is absolutely the make or break step. I read a case study from a foundry in Germany that had the same chill issue, and their data showed the filter media itself needs to soak at temp for a solid twenty minutes, not just the casing. That small pour temp bump you mentioned is key, too. It's all about keeping that viscosity in the sweet spot so the metal doesn't bridge in the filter cells. Getting that right really does turn the filter from a screen into a proper cleaning system.