Schuler and Porsche form a 50/50 joint venture to use IoT Industry 4.0 networked equipment capable of machine learning to create the “Smart Press Shop.” The intent is to create "highly flexible production of complex car body parts, with a focus on aluminum body panels." Schuler technology that enables up to 20 strokes per minute with reduced energy consumption will be deployed. Small batch production will be achieved with a [...]
"Cracks found in the Transbay Terminal superstructure appear to have started at the sharp corners of holes cut into vital steel beams during construction." The San Francisco transit center opened in late August after 10 years of construction, costing $2.2 billion. And a month later, beams with cracks were found, leading to its closure "out of an abundance of caution." This is going to be a costly mistake (covered under [...]
Great article on hot stamping by Mike Austin of Diversified Tooling Group, It concisely covers the challenges associated with hot forming and shows why it is so much more complex than conventional cold stamping. Problems from friction appear differently in hot stamping- because there is a different root cause, there is a different corrective action. Free flow of metal into the cavity minimizes friction, but the critical cooling rate is [...]
Only 35 high end Schuler servo stamping presses exist in auto manufacturing worldwide and the one at Tesla is the first one in the US. The equipment has allowed Tesla to form unique parts, like the Model 3 front fender, which engineers say has greater depth in a single piece of stamped steel than any other fender in production. Tesla chose to build a factory to handle all of its [...]
A forecast from The World Economic Forum states globally, 75 million manufacturing-related job losses are expected by 2022, but there will be 133 million new jobs available to those with proper skills. 54% of employees at large companies need significant re-training and up-skilling for these jobs. Urgent challenges for businesses and policymakers include providing reskilling opportunities, enabling remote work and building safety nets to protect at-risk workers and communities. Read [...]
A slideshow of photos taken at I-CAR’s booth at SEMA 2018 is at the bottom of an article containing information about AHSS content in 2019/2020 vehicles. These photos highlight sections of the 2019 Silverado body, showing several parts labeled with strength levels and grade. You can see several 780MPa and 980MPa steel parts, as well as some UHSS parts. GMs strategy on their new truck is to use 6XXX aluminum [...]
High volume low margin production goes to low cost countries. Equipment and skills available in US transition to higher margin value-added production. Even if manufacturers want to move production back to the US, investment in automation and appropriate talent is needed - and that's not necessarily quick to pull off. Dr. Susan Helper, an econ prof at Case Western, says that Apple can make more products in the US by [...]
Stainless steel will be used for the SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy rocket booster. Over the spectrum of operating temperatures and conditions encountered, stainless steel has better performance than carbon fiber. From a recent interview with @PopMech, it's apparent that @ElonMusk has more than just a passing awareness of materials and manufacturing. In it, Musk describes how material selection affects stiffness, fracture toughness, and of course cost. He talks about [...]
Electric motor efficiency is improved by using thinner sheets of electrical steels. This is important to meet the needs of hybrid/electric vehicles. But more laminations need to be stamped from this thinner metal to get to the same stator height. An article from steelmaker voestalpine says that at least 60 additional high-precision stamping lines/presses will be needed by 2025 for production of 25 million drive motors with a lamination thickness [...]
Every few months, we at EQS and 4M send out a newsletter covering info related to the sheet metal forming industries. Topics in a recent newsletter included material selection strategies at automakers, friction stir welding, servo presses, Tesla build quality, and laser blanking. If you want to get on the distribution list, please sign up on the EQS website. Here's a reprint of that newsletter from the 4th quarter of [...]
