‘By’ Treating of Micro-Alloyed Steels Supported by Integrated ‘IT’ Technology in the Forging Factory of Raba

Abstract

In the forging industry typical in the 21st century, economical production requires environment-friendly manufacturing of integrated and complicated products of larger and larger masses. Difficulties to be solved require effective researches, technological developments and cost analyses. Most frequently, cost analyses call the attention to energy demand of forging, to tool costs and to the efficiency of raw material usage. Preservation and enhancement of competitiveness based on environment-friendly technological solutions are one of the most important challenges for the forging industry in the 21st century. Our case study presents BY (The Best Yield) treatment technology of a planetary carrier developed in the RABA forging plant. Development of the basic technology required integrated application of CAD (Computer Aided Design) – CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) and a test method using thermographic camera. Integration of IT (Information Technology) systems created a new design method, which enables relatively precise determination of cooling technology for BY treated products even in the design stage. The properly micro-alloyed basic material and cooling technology made it possible to omit the quench and temper heat treatment and to adopt an energy-saving forging process.