Why to choose Mecolpress presses?
Mecolpress makes available to its customers quality presses and all its technologic know how. For those who need high performing machineries for hot forging we are a reliable and with a solid experience partner in this field, gained in many years of activity.
Whether it is an entire forging line or a single machinery, Mecolpress can suggest the most performing solution for production and offer a technical support able to face every need.
A first meeting to understand the necessities
When a new potential customer contacts us expressing its need to buy a press, our sales department organizes immediately a first meeting either at customer’s or at our premises in order to show the different machines and their functioning.
During this phase, to us it is of fundamental importance to understand the types of the parts to be forged and which could be the eventual criticalities connected to the single parts in order to be able to propose the most suitable press. In many cases our offers are based directly on the drawings of the parts to be forged that are analyzed by our technical office in great details.
In order to understand which is the best press, our technical office takes advantage of a software that can simulate on the computer the action of the machine. In this way we provide a valid tool for the identification of the machinery that meets the productive needs.
Some customers in addition to the single press require the entire hot forging line and, in this case as well, we can provide all the necessary machineries, and to optimize the production.
Forging tests at Mecolpress
Once the most fitting press for the customer has been identified, even if this is hydraulic or mechanical, we carry out forging tests at our premises. So, the customer can be sure in advance of the final result before starting the production at his premises.
In order to carry out the test, the dies for the realization of the wished parts are mounted on the machine. In case the customer does not have the die, there is the possibility to commission it directly to Mecolpress. Indeed, our company offers a complete service to support the customer during all the productive steps and can also offer this component.
During the many years of activity we have gained high technical skills and we have confronted with different situations. The gained experience has turned us into a partner that can understand the forgers needs, able to propose mechanical or hydraulic press for a specific production type.
Hot forging of the brass: advantages of this material
The brass and its characteristics
The brass is an alloy composed of lead, copper, zinc and other metals, whose percentage can vary. The main component of this alloy is the copper that has a percentage between 55% and 62%. This high content of copper makes the brass a good electricity conductor and a material of easy mechanical machining because it does not wear out the cutting tools quickly as it instead happens for iron or steel.
Other typical features of the brass are:
- Recycling ease: brass is often remelt and reused to produce new parts.
- Resistance to a wide temperature range: during the hot forging process the brass is able to support, without creating particular critical issues, a moderate temperature range, this simplifies considerably the work, allowing a major tolerance in the usage of machineries.
- Lacking oxidation: During the heating phase inside the die, this metal is not subject to considerable oxidation.
- High corrosion resistance: the brass is a nonferrous alloy and therefore it does not get rusty.
Sectors of brass application
Thanks to its colour similiar to gold, the brass is used also for the realization of ornamental elements, home furnishing pieces such as for example handles and finishing for furniture, elements for clothing, including zippers and belt buckles.
Another sector of particular importance is composed by fluid control. This metal is particularly fitting for the production of valves, junction and fittings; since specific brass alloys with unimportant lead content were realized, the so produced pieces are therefore suitable to the contact with drinkable water. These special alloys are defined as Lead-free
In the end, as already underlined, the brass is a good electrical conductor and this characteristic makes him suitable for the realization of the electrical and electromechanical components, including switch parts, connections and terminals.
The hot forging process of the brass
The brass, that thanks to its particular plasticity permits to produce complicated geometrical shapes with simple processing, is hot forged as follows: when the press closes the dies with a single hit on the billet, it turns it into the part to be realized (in contrast to the steel that needs almost always a sequence of many hits). Inside the two halves of the die, that have the shape of the part to be realized, it is set down an enough quantity of metal in order to perfectly fulfill the entire cavity created by the two dies once they are overlapped and closed.
Presses for brass hot forging
For the hot forging of the brass it is possible to use continuous cycle presses or single cycle presses. The continuous cycle press is provided with a ram that moves continuously without stopping. The billets loading and the forged parts unloading is automatically adjusted by the electronic check. Instead, the single cycle press expects, at the dies reopening after a single hit, that the order for a new descent or closure of the dies must be sent by the user or by the PLC.
Mecolpress presses for the hot forging of the brass
For the hot forging of brass parts, Mecolpress proposes numerous mechanical and hydraulic presses with different characteristics according to the production typology that the customer wishes. Lately we have developed an innovative technology on our hydraulic presses for forging four parts with just a single hit that allows an important saving on the productive costs, come to discover how by reading the article!
Forging simulation
Mecolpress sells turn-key forging plants.
This means to offer to the customer not only reliable and innovative machines, but competence on the forging product and process as well: the forging line has to work regularly, respecting the productivity level and granting stable quality. During the proposal phase, the careful evaluation of the parts to be forged is always a crucial element.
Traditionally, this activity was limited to the knowledge acquired thanks to many years of experience of a few key persons, so the evaluation of the parts was based on their “memory”, trying to remember the difficulties or solution identified in the past on similar parts. Precise technical parameters and data were seldom available and recorded, and therefore the surprises during the dies real tests were very frequent, in particular the forging forces were unknown and heavily influencing the final acceptance test of the machine.
Since the work flow programming is becoming more and more important to respect the planned delivery time and, at the end, to match the yearly turnover goals, the possibility to precisely foresee and plan the final activities of the forging line manufacturing is a key factor. Mecolpress since already five years use a hot forging simulation software that allows to analyse in the technical office the flow of the material in the die, and in this way to carry out a “virtual pre-acceptance” of the forging equipment. The goal is to anticipate as much as possible the forging difficulties and, to a higher level, to share among a wider number of persons and departments, the forging process knowledge: the aim is to go from “workshop expert man” to “forging mathematics”. For the sales department as well, this methodology brings clear advantages: the possibility to demonstrate in a transparent and easy-to-understand way the technical reasons on which the die design and identification of the suitable machine are based, is often a winning element to involve the customer in the project definition and in the last phases of the negotiation.
Usually the choice of the machine and the die design phases respect a standard sequence of steps:
- first, the customers provide us with the drawings of the forged and/or of the machined part,
- the Mecolpress sales personnel choose the most difficult or doubt ones and give these to the technical office.
- From this moment onward, subsequent FEM analysis are carried out, eventually suggesting as well to the customer modifications of details of the part, to reach the result of a forged piece that satisfy the (final) customer requirements and can be forged without defects thanks to the Mecolpress technology.
- The forging simulation software has been programmed with the Mecolpress machines specific dynamic characteristics and grant therefore highly reliable results.
After the die has been manufactured, the real forging phases in the production departments start.
Tthe first thing to do is to share the project parameters and machine program data between the technical office and the dies test department.
It is now that it is essential to understand if, and eventually how, the real behaviour of the material is deviating from the expected path, and to this extent the hydraulic forging machines have a special production cycle called “simulation steps” to produce several parts with pre-programmed partial completion steps, in particular with different cores penetration depths.
If this process is well managed and used, it easily lead to verify what foreseen in the computerized simulation, and also to identify the source of defects that might be found later in the finished parts, even in areas that are not easy to be seen at first sight.
Once the dies have been successfully tested in the production dept., the customer participate to the forging line final acceptance and can examine the forging process as proposed in the offer and agreed in the order.
To have anticipated the analysis of the piece and to share the forging process knowledge among the engineers of the technical office has reduced the variability of the length of the real tests duration and has brought to a much more precise and reliable calculation of the lead time of the machine in general.
The technology of the shape
The importance of the shape in the industrial applications
The hydraulic presses manufactured by Mecolpress are able to produce extremely high precision parts, that fully respect the characteristics of the shape originally thought by the designers. This allows to create products of very high complexity like the hydrogen-powered car, that is based on components with the lowest tolerances and on shapes that match each other with highest precision.
Auto ad idrogeno secondo l’interpretazione di Aston Martin (www.astonmartin.com/media)
The hot forging of materials allows, more than any other technology, to obtain perfect shapes and with high resistance, that can be employed in excellence productions.
Mecolpress is a leader in the manufacturing of mechanical and hydraulic presses as well as in the consulting services to use the hot forging technologies for the precision of the shape.
What would be of the technological progress without the shape technologies?
The history of the mankind shows that the research of always better performing and innovative solutions has lead to an accurate care of the details in the production of a perfect shape, in the mechanic industry as well as in the hydraulic, medical technic and building sector ones.
The Shape Forming Technology is also the title of this permanent blog, that Mecolpress issues and updates with the purpose to highlight the need of research and investments for the well-being of the people.
The mechanic of Mecolpress is dedicated to the shape forming technology to provide its customers with the abilities of producing in an always more precise and efficient way.
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