Niclas,
Challenges like you are seeing I feel are very common in all production. And I think the biggest issue to be overcome is an unfamiliarity with the materials, the standards, and the methods of determining the measured results.
I have the advantage of working with a team that tries to connect our facilities with our Customers regarding what they need. So I get to see both the Customer side and the Vendor side of these problems. In a lot of cases, the direct Customer, or the final customer, has no understanding of what they are trying to obtain. They see values for strength, hardness, or formability on different products and just assume they can pick and choose without having to deal with tradeoffs. So they overspecify a material and then are disappointed. On the other hand, there are a lot of customers who underspecify their materials, leaving such a wide window that final properties can vary significantly from batch to batch. We come across facilities that just order a "6063" alloy, thinking that is all they need to say, not understanding that 6063 has a big chemistry window which can result in wide variations in strength, formability, or anodizing response. And they get frustrated because they can't get consistent results.
The solution (which for some reason many companies do NOT want to dabble in) is to get everyone together to discuss what the end goal is, and create a tight specification that everyone can live with. Producers (well, the good ones, at least) really want their customers to be successful, and want to make themselves invaluable in terms of assistance. And, likely, they are more familiar with the solutions to the end customer's problems than anyone in between.
Back to the 6063 alloys, billet suppliers are ready and capable for casting to very tight "sub-windows" of chemistry with little to no upcharge, if it is common enough. By doing so, you can more tightly control properties, easing your own production problems and reducing scrap. So, it is in your best interest to reach out to them and see what they think is the best combination for your product. Maybe you don't care what the chemistry is, as long as it is 6063. So, the cast house can pick a convenient subset that matches their production and you can get improved consistency. And maybe you have a preference for a certain level of performance - very likely they can tune your chemistry for you while also improving consistency.
And by working with the suppliers, they can prevent you (or you can prevent your customers) from over- or irrationally- specifying product. Such as by having a hardness tolerance so tight that standard uncertainty in testing means you can't legitimately achieve it.
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David Betz
Sr. Laboratory Engineer
Hydro Aluminum Metals, USA
dbetzasm@gmail.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 03-08-2022 09:22
From: Niclas Bornegard
Subject: Challenge controlling base material
Hi Collin,
Thanks for joining the thread.
"Any advice?", was perhaps the wrong formulation for a heading in this conversation, and a very big topic. Sorry for that. The intension was more to formulate a discussion topic for "a room full of materials professionals".
More appropriate would maybe have been: "is this a familiar challenge at work when you have forming and heat treating operations within your production?"
We mainly use AISI 316 and 316L as base materials in our production of brazed plate heat exchangers. We do specify mechanical and chemical properties of the incoming materials.
Depending on "what side of the table" you are sitting you may argue that the specifications are either too wide or too narrow. My experience is that wide specifications generally puts more pressure on production (operator competence, process control, maintenance etc.) while narrow specifications give purchasing departments head aces. The correct balance here I find is "tricky". Familiar "challenge" at work?
BR
Niclas
Original Message:
Sent: 3/8/2022 7:30:00 AM
From: Colin Fletcher
Subject: RE: Challenge controlling base material
Niclas,
Factors for material consistency, and approaches for controlling the same, can vary based on material type (e.g. aluminum, steel, titanium, etc.) - are you able to say what types of materials you're working with?
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Colin Fletcher, PE, CWI
Sr. Metallurgist
Xerox R&D / 3D Printing
Cary NC
Original Message:
Sent: 03-07-2022 13:56
From: Niclas Bornegard
Subject: Challenge controlling base material
Any advice?
One challenges for me at work can be to understand and give guidance on how to control the base materials we use in production, through the different forming and heat treating operations we do, so as to obtain repeatable properties in the final products.
Very similar (on paper/certificates) base materials may behave differently in our forming and heat treating operations. Finding the root-cause can be tricky, especially if you are not there collecting first hand information.
Would love to hear your comments.
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Niclas Bornegard
Senior Innovation Enginner
Swep International Ab
Landskrona
46709185572
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