The UK foundry industry came together to celebrate the ‘Best of British’ manufacturing at the sell-out Cast Metals Industry 2015 Awards Dinner.
The third award of the night, for ‘Innovation’, was won by Brunel University for the development of a new Niobium based grain refiner for use with aluminium.
“The Cast Metals Industry Awards are an opportunity for us to recognise the many remarkable developments that are happening throughout our industry, and to show the world the imagination, problem solving and innovation that is happening in foundries every day of the year. I am delighted by both the number of entries and the quality in all categories,” said Pam Murrell, Chief Executive of the Cast Metals Federation which organises the awards.
“Every entry showed a company at the top of its game; some big, some small, some on the leading edge of technology, some producing many 1000’s of castings a day and some just producing a handful. Shortlisting the Highly Commended entries, and then selecting the Winners was a very hard job for our judges as there is so much in the industry to celebrate,” she continued.
Innovation Award – Brunel University
Brunel University has always had strong links with the UK foundry industry as a key academic and technical resource. This award was won for the development of a new Niobium based grain refiner for use with cast aluminium. While the benefits of grain refinement are well known there has been little recent innovation in this area. The new master alloy developed by Dr Nadendla and his team has been tested on a range of hypo- and hypereutic Al-Si alloys with Si content of 6-17wt%.
The effect of the new refiner addition on as-cast microstructures is considerable and results in improved fluidity, so thinner sections can be cast with lower weight and reduced defects. Industrial trials have been conducted and work is now being done with the supply chain to make the alloy commercially available. The results have also indicated that the refiner is also effective in Mg alloys and its potential in this area is now being investigated.
Congratulations to Dr Hari-Babu Nadendla on his award.
Article taken and adapted from the Cast Metals Federation press release.