41 Back in the day, if I’d suggested a solution that fell outside a foundry’s expection or experience, I would often be faced with the response, “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Which roughly translated as—unless you have a compelling case as to why we should change— we’re going to stick with what we know. A difficult argument to counter, especially when they probably had years of experience and I, in their eyes was somebody who was short on that experience. Back then, the transfer of knowledge was a problem with each foundry closely guarding their own pool of know-how, lest they give a commerical advantage to a competitor. As many foundries offered ‘cradle to the grave’ employment, people and knowledge tended not to move around. Ironically this situation started to change with the collapse of the UK foundry industry; rather than work at one place for many years, many personnel found that circumstances required them to move from foundry to foundry and taking their skills and knowledge along with them. Most countries that have a foundry industry, also have an organization (similar to the AFS) to represent them, and their industry to the wider world. The aim of the Institute of Cast Metal Engineers (ICME) was, and is, to bring together people from all sectors of the foundry industry so that there can be an exchange of information, a bit like the aim of Simple Solutions That Work! Back in the early 1980s they used to release technical bulletins that highlighted best practice etc. I believe it also used to carry out research into foundry procedures. Of late, the ICME, it is more likely to be pushing the importance of both training and internationally recognized qualifications and unfortunately less on critically important technical information. This has subsequently caused a change in the role of the equipment supplier. We are now often looked upon as a repository of knowledge, sometimes even outside of our direct scope of experience. As suppliers change their technology it tends to feed into the foundry rather positively. More and more these questions are being asked, “Why does process A work better than process B” and “Can we not only repeat it but also improve on it”. The changes in the development of the foundry industry as it progresses more from a history of doing it this way, to a data driven industry not only reflects the changes in the industry, the expectation of the customer but also changing workforce and work patterns. It has also widened the scope of what is possible. One area that highlights the current situation is the matter of ladle preheaters. LADLE PREHEATERS Acetarc has been making ladle preheater and preheater/dryers since 2000. The designs have evolved greatly to make use of available technology. Early units involved a lot of piping and had fairly basic controls. They put out heat but you couldn’t do much with them and they all needed setting up by a combustion technician. Neither did they have much in the way of safety features. A far cry from the latest TECHNICAL TOOLBOX ISSUE STEVEN HARKER Technical Director Acetarc Engineering Co. Ltd ARTICLE TAKEAWAYS: • Changing needs for ladle preheaters • Preheating the refractory lining LADLE PREHEATERS & REFRACTORY LININGS—AN INTEGRAL UNIT Continued on next page
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