Failure-Analysis Based Redesign of Furnace Conveyor System Components: A Case Study

Abstract

Any manufacturing equipment designed from scratch requires a detailed follow-up of the performance for the first units placed in service during the production ramp-up, so that lessons learned are immediately implemented in next deliveries and running equipment is accordingly updated. Component failure analysis is one of the most valuable sources of improvement among these lessons. In this context, a failure-assessment based design revision of the conveying system of a newly developed press hardening furnace is presented. The proposed method starts with a forensic metallurgical analysis of the failed components, followed by an investigation of the working conditions to ensure they match the forensic observations. The results of this approach evidenced an initially unforeseen thermo-mechanical damage produced by a combination of thermal distortions, material ageing, and mechanical fatigue. Once the cause–effect relationship for the failure is backed up by evidence, an improved design is proposed. As a conclusion, a new standard design for the furnace entrance set of rollers in hot stamping lines was established for roller hearth furnaces. The solution can be extended to similar applications, ensuring the same issues will not arise thanks to the lessons learned.

Sand Removal Mechanism of a High-Speed Roller Bit with Helical Sealing

“…The liquid was removed through outlet (E) and along outlets (C) and (D). The liquid in the container (14) was weighed and the weight difference between the liquid entering and the liquid collected was calculated. The difference was the leakage of the helical sealing, and the sand removal performance of the helical sealing can be evaluated.…”

“…The entry of a slurry abrasive medium is the most critical factor affecting the sealing life of a high-speed roller bit [9][10][11]. All existing sealings are passive [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] and suffer serious aging and wear, limiting improvements in the bit speed and working life. In addition, poor working conditions (i.e., a high temperature, high abrasive medium, high load, and narrow sealing chamber) aggravate the sealing failure, leading to great difficulties and challenges in research [27,28].…”

The Systematic Design of Industrial Products through Design Archetypes: An Application on Mechanical Transmissions

“…Many case studies can be retrieved from the literature such as, describing a tool for designing hot forging dies [16], a tool for developing virtual prototypes of multifunctional agricultural machines based on real component behavior [17], a web-based tool for identifying the undercut feature of molds for injection molding and for the automatic design of parting surface [18], a configuration tool for the generation of conceptual train geometry for design automation and reuse [19], an agent-based model representing product development as the learning and application of knowledge coming from product and development process data [20], an ontology representing the information and design knowledge in product design process [21], or a library of components for the automatic definition of the finite element model of an automotive structure [22]. Other works have focused on manufacturing the following: an ontology-based product design framework for manufacturability verification and knowledge reuse to support the sharing and reuse of design and manufacturing knowledge [23], a failure-assessment based design revision of manufacturing equipment based on the lessons learned from forensic metallurgical analysis [24], and an approach to capturing systematic knowledge for manufacturing process innovation [25].…”

Failure Mechanisms in Alloys

“…Combined (experimental, analytical, numerical model, etc.) [3,[6][7][8][12][13][14][15][16][18][19][20]22,25,26] As can be readily observed, the experimental and empirical approach is the dominant methodology of failure investigation. In addition, the emergence of numerical simulation, using finite element modeling (FEM), tends to be very popular in the prediction of material behavior and potential failure prevention.…”

“…Reference Structural and pipeline steels [1,5,9,13,16,20,22,27] Cast iron [14,19] Special resistance and stainless steels [3,4,9,11,17,18,21,23,24] Wear resistant coatings and surface layers [24,27]…”