Optimization of Mould Base Production using Ranked Positional Weighted Method and Single Minute Exchange of Die System

In the domain of intense global competition, the manufacturers are in need of producing different varieties of products. Successful manufacturing firms in the past have well produced the products based on the minimum amount of requirements in the market. This is so because of customer needs and economy rate is minimum in the past period of time. People like to use molded parts instead of using assembled component in the present days to survey in the market against competitors. So the manufacturer decides to produce a wide variety of mould bases for production and to satisfy the market needs. But the mould base manufacturing is not easier to produce the components to reach the market. It ought to be very much precised and devours more opportunity to produce the component by manufacturer to deliver that in an on-time to market. For this situation, the enterprise which produces distinctive mould bases needs to reduce the lead time is the major fundamental worry of the work. The primary target of this work is to decrease the setup time from 30 minutes to less than 20 minutes for each component. This cannot be accomplished without huge investment and to be versatile for manufacturing different mould parts. This needs special planning to manufacture different moulds. And the result obtained with the help of using Ranked Positional Weighted (RPW) method procedure for an entire operation to calculate the critical path of production of components and also use the Single Minute Exchange Die (SMED) to optimize the setup time in an operation. Results of the research signifies the application of ranking an operation with suitable methodological approach to reduce the cycle time of the production of component to satisfy the market needs

Solidification and Interface Reaction of Titanium Alloys in the BaZrO3 Shell-Mould

The investment casting technology is one of the major methods to produce the parts of the titanium due to its low production cost. However, the high activity of titanium melt gives rise to the requirement of high chemical stability of shell materials, to avoid or decrease the interfacial reaction between the mould and the melt. In this paper, a novel BaZrO3 – coated Al2O3 shell was first introduced to the investment casting of titanium alloy. The grain size and baking temperature on the properties of the novel mould were investigated, and then the Ti6Al4V and TiNi alloys were successfully casted by means of this shell. The alloy-mould interaction was discussed. The results showed that the mould achieve high mechanical properties when the content of coarse powder was 50% after sintering 4 hours under 1500°C, and the BaZrO3 coating exhibited an effective barrier to avoid the direct contact between the mould base material and the melt, the thickness of reaction layer of TiNi alloy was about 8 μm, and 17 μm to Ti6Al4V alloy, no refractory particles and elemental diffusion were observed inside the metal. This may imply that BaZrO3 is a promising candidate material for the investment casting of titanium alloy.

Simulation Analysis of Upper Mould Base for High Speed Punch

Based on two kinds of upper mould bases real structures of high speed punch, the structure was simplified and simulation models were built in next step. According to working condition of actual temperature changes and moving characteristics for the high speed punch, the thermal boundary conditions, the thermal- stress coupling conditions and mechanical constraint conditions of the simulation model were set up, and the deformation for the guiding hole of upper mould base were got through simulation analysis. Through the comparison of the two simulation results, it illustrated that the improved upper mould base is more suitable for high speed punch with high punch frequency condition.